"May you live in interesting Times."
- Ancient Chinese proverb
It's no coincidence that I was born during the beginning of the Hip-Hop era. Although far removed from the Bronx the culture had spread all across America and when I beheld the mystical styles of break dancers I was immediately hooked. The scary punks with spiked green hair were no match for these funky moving breakers. The music and movies like Breakin became my main source of curiosity and fascination outside of the Star Wars universe. I remember practicing break dancing with my friends at school and once I had gained enough confidence I couldn't wait to show my grandmother my funky moves. She must have thought I was mad when I dragged my cardboard mat into the kitchen, threw it on the floor and began my break dancing routine. She freaked and screamed "You'll break your neck!" when I got on my head and attempted to spin upside down. she grabbed me and shook me and told me that I was never to break dance again.
I never did but my love of Hip-Hop only grew the more older that I got. Soon I was experimenting on the wheels of steel and making beats on drum machines and pounding out trippy synth melodies. it was in the 8th grade during detention when I finally realized that I had already been writing poetry and rapping along to other rap songs - why don't I just write my own rap! It was a holy moment that eventually led me to recording my own albums, dropping out of high school and running off to the big city in search of rap superstar dreams. I knew that I had it in me but failed to realize just how much of a brick wall I was actually up against. Being a white rapper in 1997 was a practical death sentence. the post-Vanilla Ice wreckage that he left in his wake was an in your face landmine.
Vanilla Ice had nearly made it impossible to be taken serious, no matter how good you were no executive would touch it. I went through the rounds at every major label and although I was well liked and there seemed to be genuine feelings for my music nobody would take a chance. It got to the point where my albums and demo's were so broad they included rapping over trance music and reggae cuts. I figured I would be more accepted in Europe and almost landed a few deals that would have brought me to London, but they fizzled out at the last second. Only one man saw the vast amount of potential that I possessed and made the move to sign me. Cess Silvera, the director of the legendary Jamaican film 'Shottas' was that man. But even so I was reminded all the time about Vanilla Ice and to get ready because "Niggaz is gonna HATE you." Just what did this Ice dude do that was so bad?? Lets take a Look back on his legacy with a new perspective and see exactly what blasphemy the iceman caused by his cometh...
There's no way to describe it if you weren't there. When I was twelve going on thirteen Hip-hop was a major part of my life. I never missed an episode of Rap City or Yo Mtv Raps! I would ride my back halfway across town and special order cassette tape singles and albums based off the videos I was watching. If I bought a cassette album I would buy the one that seemed like the least popular or different. I was lucky that My parents didn't give a shit that I liked to listen to filthy rap music and lyrics with bad words. Who cares?! I had a fresh assortment of the Arabian Prince, Eazy-E, Tim Dog, Rakim, Schooly D, Too Short and my favorite all time cassette single of BDP'S "Love's gonna get'cha". Life was great. I had a fresh supply of music and a beautiful Mexican girlfriend named Lelani Greene. Her mother totally hated me, especially after catching us making out at the apartment complex's jacuzzi. We had to sneak around to meeting clandestinely at the pizza parlor. However these meetings were usually overshadowed by the awesome Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game that just came out. The TMNT'S were huge and so was this song by MC Hammer "You can't touch this" It was massive!
I can still recall where I was the first time that I heard it. It put Hip-hop on the map commercially and was the first Hip-hop song that proved there was serious money to be made on this art form that up until then belonged to the streets. Just watch the legendary Behind the Music episode of MC Hammer when the executives start jizzing in their pants talking about how Hammer was going to sell more records than Elvis! Hammer was everywhere, a national phenomen and following hot on his heels was a whiteboy from Dallas that was opening up for him on tour. Vanilla Ice...
As the summer waned and the reality began to set in that I was indeed leaving the elementary school world behind and going into the fabled Jr. High to begin 7th grade, me and my mother set out to do some school shopping. This clearly stands out as my low point fashion failure of all times personally. I had to get Hammer pants but even worse than that I wanted the cooler slicker and slimmer ones that Vanilla Ice, my new fashion and rap hero was wearing. I now had slick gear and the sweet fade, ready to begin 7th grade. Words fail to express the impact that "Ice Ice Baby" had on me. Both the video and the song were undoubtedly the coolest things my eyes and ears had ever beheld. The album "To the Extreme" was listened by me so much that the tape eventually just melted into the walkman. Apparently I wasn't the only one infatuated with the Ice man. The whole world was! Then he appeared in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie and my dome almost exploded!
But soon after kicking his amazing Ninja raps something strange happened...
The Iceman fell off, quickly and in a massive way. His frst feature movie "Cool as Ice" was basically declared dead on arrival by the press and Hollywood. I was excited as shit to see the movie and thought it was great. I remember watching it in one of the outdoor theaters in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba with my rocker chick girlfriend Amber. She had honey brown skin, yellow curls, a nose piercing and huge boobs for a 7th grader. Good times! Recently I watched it again and although it's pretty bad, it still beats the "House Party"movies for sheer hip-hop entertainment. Eventually the world kept turning and by the time I found the "Mind Blowing" cassette at the Navy Exchange I couldn't believe what I was seeing and simply put the image in the back of my mind as I grabbed the De la Soul album. Vanilla Ice was now a distant memory after taking the world by storm a short while earlier. He fell into depression and drug addiction and even though he had millions of dollars he was all alone and miserable at his music not being excepted. He took to his other hobbies, mainly dirt bike and jet ski racing, copious amounts of drugs and alcohol and drove himself to the point of near suicide.
Being too young to understand exactly what doomed Vanilla Ice at the time, I went back and analyzed everything that happened in hip-hop prior to his arrival and the aftermath he created. It is unbelievable. Before Ice arrived on the scene Hip-hop had been fairly established as a legit art and had grown tremendously after Rakim changed the rapping style into a sinister form of respectable flowing poetry. The beats were neck snapping and still void of having the worries of sample clearing lawyers hoovering over producers demanding publishing payments. But the problem was nobody was really making any money. Then all of a sudden, the worst fear of the black rap community came true. Like de ja vu all over again- along came a white boy that threatened to hijack the whole scene and laugh all the way to the bank. The outrage was palpable and overwhelming when Vanilla Ice came out of nowhere with his smash hit single "Ice ice baby" Amazingly it became the first Hip-hop single to top the Billboard charts! And along with his debut album "To the Extreme" Vanilla Ice sold a staggering 13 million records in less than a year. To say that the Hip-hop community was pissed is an understatement! But wait a minute. "Ice ice baby" is dope! And so is the album!
Lets give Vanilla Ice a little more respect. He loved Hip-hop and got his start rapping and dancing in clubs in Dallas. He performed his own songs and put the work in every night, choreographing his own moves and working with his homeboy DJ Earthquake. The club owners in Dallas put up the money to produce and release an independent album called "Hooked" Most of his material from his major label release was first found on this album. The stroke that had the magic touch was the video "Ice baby" shot for 8 g's in a Dallas warehouse, it eventually found its way onto the influential Miami video channel The Box and gained a cult following in Miami's heavy bass and club scene.
Soon the high school drop out Ice was snatched up by SBK, given a major release and a star was born. And although they marketed him as a rap Elvis and overexposed him to the point of unease Vanilla Ice was no way a studio creation or marketing gimmick. He was the real deal even if people still fail to realize it. unfortunately the backlash, lies and slander from the press, the hatred of the hip-hop community and being loathed by everyone except teenage girls ultimately destroyed Vanilla Ice shortly after his arrival. He held the world in his hand for a precious moment though, and that counts for something. he even banged Madonna!
Ice headlined shows to over 10,000 fans and won prestigious awards for his work in Hip-hop but almost immediatley after winning was discarded to the waste bin as a sick musical joke, but not before telling the national television audience to "Kiss my white butt."
Overnight success, millions of dollars and a ton of hatred is a heavy load to carry for someone as young as 22! What rap historians have failed to understand is just how important Vanilla Ice truly was to Hip-hop. Because of his skin color, like it or not Vanilla Ice brought rap music to the suburbs. Teenage girls, no to mention a whole new generation of fans were exposed to this incredible art form thanks to Vanilla Ice. For that alone he should be thanked!
Ice even appeared on Saturday Night Live and despite Loren Michaels only giving him one time to perform he totally tore the stage up! Unfortunately right after Ice quickly became a lightning rod of ridicule and clowning...
Ice spoke about the media trashing him and the fake beef he supposedly had with MC Hammer with the Baltimore Sun during the height of his career:
"When we get together, we go, 'Did you really say that?' and the other goes, 'No, that was just the damn media again.' I don't know why journalists keep trying to pit us against each other. Maybe they're just trying to sell papers or magazines. . . . You know, a feud between the two biggest rappers. Whatever it is, we're friends. We just saw each other at the Grammys. Everything's cool."
So who was the remark aimed at?
"I was talking to all those people who said I could never make it. the ones that said the public wouldn't accept a white rapper. I've got a serious attitude. If someone tells me I can't do something, I work twice as hard. So, I was telling all those people who doubted over the years, 'Well, here I am, getting my American Music Awards . . . Dick Clark, baby. The line forms right here and it's a long one.'"
It isn't as easy for Ice to kiss off another issue: the racial one.
To anyone aware of how white musicians and merchants wrested rock 'n' roll away from the music's black founders in the '50s and '60s, it's only natural for many rappers to wonder whether history is going to repeat itself with rap following Vanilla Ice's phenomenal success. Ice paused. Despite the arrogance in most of Ice's publicity photos, the slender young man with the bolt of blond in his otherwise dark hair seemed down-to-earth. On this day, he appeared weary from the months of media scrutiny and troubled by the talk of race and pop carpetbagging.
"I seem to be a prime suspect to be picked on," he said finally. "I'm setting patterns here for other people to come along, bringing rap music into ears that never heard it before or never even considered buying rap music . . . and I'm white. A lot of people don't like that because rap music is black. Blacks did originate it, but rap also belongs to the streets and the street is where I came from.
All those stories that came out about me not really being from the streets are just a lot of crap. If you can't see I'm from the streets, then you're blind. How many white people do you know who can dance? How many white people do you know can rap? How many white people you know can beat box? How many white people you know can produce their own rap music?"
Vanilla Ice even had to weather an attack from Arsenio Hall...
From the excellent article by James Bernard published Febuary 3, 1991 in the New York Times:
Everyone seems to hate Vanilla Ice -- except the seven million or so fans who ignited his rocket ride to the top of the pop charts. With much verve and a bit of glee, the press has combed his past, uncovering inconsistencies in his official biography. To many potential fans he's too teeny-bopper to be cool. Even macho auto buffs laughed when Vanilla Ice was near the first in line to plunk down more than $100,000 for a shiny Acura NSX sports car.But perhaps most stinging, rap purists refer to Vanilla Ice as the "Elvis of rap," a white performer who has capitalized on the most influential black music to emerge in the last 20 years.
Vanilla Ice shrugs off the comparison. "I don't know who wrote it in the first place," he says. "I'm not Elvis Presley; I'm Vanilla Ice. I don't know anything about him except that he made movies and was a superstar. I never bought any of his records."
But influence is not the question; his place in the pop world is. In a society perceived as indifferent and even hostile to minorities, rappers like KRS-One and Ice Cube are the voice of an increasingly frustrated young black America; Vanilla Ice, on the other hand, offers easily digestible raps about girls, cars and dancing. Aficionados know that Vanilla Ice cannot matchthe cleverness of L. L. Cool J., the verbal gymnastics of Brand Nubian, the humor of Digital Underground. But Vanilla Ice is white, sexy, palatable in the suburbs and thus highly marketable.
Where many critically acclaimed black rappers struggle for exposure, the 22-year-old Vanilla Ice has managed to become a huge star since the release of his first major-label album, "To the Extreme" (SBK Records), in September. His debut single, "Ice Ice Baby," was the first rap song to reach No. 1 on the pop singles chart. By November he had bumped M. C. Hammer from his 21-week occupation of the top pop album slot, and he has held that position since.
Moreover, Vanilla Ice is in the midst of his first major tour as a headliner (with a sold-out appearance Wednesday at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan) and has signed an endorsement deal with Coca-Cola. SBK is rushing a follow-up while "To the Extreme" is still hot. The new record, to be released in April, features live renditions of his hits and five previously unrecorded songs, including "Satisfaction," which, yes, heavily borrows from the Rolling Stones standard. The rapper had wanted to include the number on "To the Extreme," but the Stones organization balked. No one's balking now at Vanilla Ice's ability to sell records, and generate royalties.
Charles Koppelman, head of SBK Records and Pictures, is banking (literally) on the hope that Vanilla Ice "is an incredibly magnetic star who can be as important a film star as he is a music star." After filming a cameo for the sequel to "Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtles," Vanilla Ice signed a million-dollar contract with SBK Pictures, formed specifically for his project. Although a script has not been chosen, the rapper will film an action-adventure this spring.
Because of the speed and scope of his success, Vanilla Ice has been subject to considerable scrutiny. The firestorm started on Nov. 18, when a front-page article in The Dallas Morning News reported inaccuracies in the life story he had been feeding the press. The revelations, echoed and re-examined by many others, exposed Vanilla Ice, the tough-talking, quick-footed rapper who was supposedly raised in Miami's mean streets, as Robert Van Winkle, who spent most of his high-school years in an affluent Dallas suburb. The facts surfaced around the same time that the pop duo Milli Vanilli confessed to not singing on their own multiplatinum album. In many minds, Vanilla Ice, with his sculpted hair and cheekbones, was the same kind of pretty pop figurehead.
Although his publicist has since quietly revised his official biography, Vanilla Ice is unrepentant. Was his upbringing really rough and tumble? "I never said anything to beef up my background," he maintains. "I'm from the streets. That's where I learned to dance and rap. It should be obvious to anybody's eye that a white guy doing what I'm doing had to be exposed to the streets." What about the discredited claim that he attended the same Miami high school as Luther (Luke) Campbell of the 2 Live Crew? "I never said I went to the same high school as Luke. That's impossible. He's five or six years older than I am. I did say that I went to one of the schools he attended."
About the national motocross championships, of which the press can find no evidence? "I won three national champions," he insists.
Vanilla Ice bristles at the suggestion that the media has put him on the defensive. Any rapper, but especially a white rapper, needs a "street" credibility that Vanilla Ice's suburban upbringing doesn't automatically confer. "It doesn't matter," he says, then manages to invoke and mangle two of rap's most tired phrases at the same time: "It ain't where you're from; it's where you're at. Bottom line: don't believe the hype."
But there's profit to be made in all this contention: a Vanilla-dictated but ghost-written autobiography, "Ice by Ice" (Avon Books), will be in stores next week. His memoirs will attempt to clarify the "where he's from" part (a not-so-long journey from his birth in Miami 22 years ago to his rebirth as big-time rapper and soon-to-be movie star). But the "where he's at" question may be more relevant.
Vanilla Ice wants to avoid being characterized as a rap wannabe who is, well, vanilla, and he is proud that audiences chant "go white boy" at concerts. "My neighborhood was predominantly black, my school was predominantly black. I got 'go white boy, go white boy' from City Lights, a totally black club in Dallas. No other white person would set foot in that club, but I performed there every night. My black friends in seventh grade called me Vanilla. I got it from them ."
Vanilla Ice did emerge from a black scene: his manager, Tommy Quon, discovered him working the crowds at the now-defunct City Lights. Earthquake, Vanilla Ice's deejay and co-writer, was the club's house disk jockey, and its doormen, Big E. and Chilly, are now his bodyguards. Ice's background dancers, all black, were recruited from City Lights. Hence, his touring company re-creates the club scene from which he blossomed.
But Vanilla Ice is no longer in that environment. According to his road manager, John Bush, the year-end slew of club dates, a warm-up to his current tour, drew an overwhelmingly white, suburban crowd, many of whom may not own any other rap albums.
At City Lights, chants of "go white boy" may have sounded like a refreshing acceptance of his difference in the rap world, but the same words of encouragement ring eerily when the audience is 90 percent white.
These not-so-subtle racial dynamics make the rapper uncomfortable. "Being white helps me, I guess, but I wish it didn't," he says. He credits his meteoric rise to the promotional muscle of his record company: "My being white had something to do with it, but not as much as they say it does. It depends on the contract you sign with the record company. They can make you No. 1 if they push you enough."
Well, it's not that simple. Recent developments in the hip-hop world made the emergence of a sexy white rapper with such huge marketing potential virtually inevitable. Innovative artists like Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions and the Jungle Brothers have little opportunity to reach a larger audience ("Ice Ice Baby" was played on radio stations that had never presented rap before, which many critics interpreted as a sign of racism). Few radio stations regularly program rap, even those that seek black audiences, and established rap outlets have been drying up. WBLS, New York City's leading black station, pushed its popular Friday-night show from the 8 P.M.-to-midnight slot into the 2-to-6 A.M. graveyard shift. In response, Marley Marl -- the station's widely respected disk jockey and a rap record producer -- resigned.
Critics say that less challenging rappers like M. C. Hammer and Vanilla Ice are monopolizing air time; indeed, their music may be the only rap heard by the mainstream, making them more novel and marketable.
Where rap, at its core, reflects the anger or humor of young blacks, Vanilla Ice's lyrics are a thematic descendant of the Beach Boys rather than the Black Panthers or Richard Pryor. Vanilla Ice explains that "I don't know much about political stuff. I rap about what I know. Girls and stuff. That's what is going through my head." His new single, "Stop That Train," imagines a mildly racy male fantasy, with none of the deft metaphorical wordplay of, say, L. L. Cool J.: "I thought she was an angel and soft as a cream puff/ Until I seen her come out with the whip and handcuffs/ Breathin' down my neck I was scared to death/ The sweat from my body as it rolls down my neck."
When he comes close to a political issue, Vanilla Ice is just enough of a bad boy to tantalize, but -- nudge, nudge, wink, wink -- there's no real trouble here. In his massive hit, "Ice Ice Baby," Vanilla Ice is hanging out with the fellas in the neighborhood. They are "rollin' in my 5.0" (translation: "riding in his Mustang 5.0"). Vanilla Ice carries a "nine" (a nine-millimeter pistol), his friend a "gauge" (shotgun). Shots ring out, everyone scatters, the police arrive. The telltale line: "Police on the scene, you know what I mean/ They passed me up, confronted all the dope fiends." Where many rappers document the real tensions between black youth and police, Vanilla Ice, clean-cut and white, never has to worry about being a suspect.
While critics say he is purposely sidestepping hard issues to grab the pop charts, Vanilla Ice insists he does not write faux-rap but specializes in a new type of rap. Militant rap "gets no airplay," he says. "That's underground stuff. That's not my style. I'm not big on the gangster stuff. I've lived the life and got out of it. God is the way I go now, and I've made the music the way I've wanted to make it. I just thought of a style that hasn't been played out. I like to call it 'above-ground.' "
When asked if he sells more albums than critically praised artists because he is a better rapper, Vanilla Ice displays unexpected modesty. "No, I wouldn't say I'm better. It's a question of different. I just thought of a new style. Vanilla Ice. Above-ground."
Aside from the issues of race, resume and downright ugly reviews, what makes Vanilla Ice most defensive is the phrase "overnight success." "It might seem like that. I mean, I never imagined my career would take off like it has. But I've struggled. I had a first album out two or three years ago, and we struggled to get a deal before that. Remember, I wrote 'Ice Ice Baby' three and a half years ago. Many people don't know that." (Most of that first album, released by the independent label Ultrax, found its way onto the better-produced "To the Extreme.")
When he hits the stage, Vanilla Ice compensates for any lack of musical and lyric-writing prowess. "When you come to a Vanilla Ice show," he says, "you get Vanilla Ice. I don't mean to talk bad about anybody, but when you go to a New Kids on the Block show, who do you get?" Pause. "Maurice Starr," he answers flatly, referring to the manager who writes most of their music and tightly orchestrates their shows. It is telling that Vanilla Ice compares himself to New Kids, a pop-marketing phenomenon for pre-teens, rather than fellow rappers.
But Vanilla Ice is his own creation. He choreographs his own team of dancers, writes lyrics, produces much of his music and refuses to lip-sync, even though his athletic dances leave him breathless. When opening for M. C. Hammer on his 1990 tour, Vanilla Ice surrounded himself with three male dancers; for his current world tour, he has five male and three female dancers, as well as a live drummer. Surprisingly, his modest troupe generates the same energy level as M. C. Hammer's company of 30 or more writhing bodies.
On stage, Vanilla Ice reaches out to audience members, raps enthusiastically and has perfected his stage chatter. It's no wonder his videos put his performances front and center. He is now pop's reigning sex symbol. When he pumps his pelvis, which is often, the audience, largely teen-age and female, screams even louder. He frequently coaxes them to call his name, and they do so without hesitation. With a huge grin, he soaks up the adoration as if to bolster himself from the naysayers. The questions will remain, but so will Vanilla Ice -- at least for a while.
Vanilla Ice will probably never truly get the props he deserves and lets hope his prediction that Justin Beiber will be falling and crashing soon comes true! lol..
I hope this little post sheds a little more light on a truly talented individual that for better or worst helped pushed Hip-hop forward.
The videos below are essential viewing. The spectacular Youtube clip "The Fall of Vanilla Ice" pretty much says it all. His classic video that started it off (Still has over 24 milllion views!) and two bonus viz with Madonna! Lol He totally banged the whore of Babylon and didn't end up as an illuminatti Tool! Vanilla Ice Rules! Ice Ice Baby Forever.....