Can I change the color of Font Awesome's icon color?

Question

I have to wrap my icon within an <a> tag for some reason.
Is there any possible way to change the color of a font-awesome icon to black?
or is it impossible as long as it wrapped within an <a> tag? Font awesome is supposed to be font not image, right?

<a href="/users/edit"><i class="icon-cog"></i> Edit profile</a>

Answer 1

This worked for me:

.icon-cog {
  color: black;
}

For versions of Font Awesome above 4.7.0, it looks this:

.fa-cog {
  color: black;
}

Answer 2

HTML:

    <i class="icon-cog blackiconcolor">

css :

    .blackiconcolor {color:black;}

you can also add extra class to the button icon...