How Old Was Vanilla Ice When He Released Ice Ice Baby
Why the Earth Is Subsequently Vanilla Ice
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February three, 1991
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Everyone seems to hate Vanilla Ice -- except the vii 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'southward too teeny-bopper to be cool. Even macho auto buffs laughed when Vanilla Water ice was near the first in line to plunk downwards more than $100,000 for a shiny Acura NSX sports car.
But peradventure nigh stinging, rap purists refer to Vanilla Water ice as the "Elvis of rap," a white performer who has capitalized on the nearly influential black music to emerge in the final xx years.
Vanilla Ice shrugs off the comparison. "I don't know who wrote it in the first place," he says. "I'm non Elvis Presley; I'm Vanilla Ice. I don't know anything virtually him except that he made movies and was a superstar. I never bought whatever of his records."
Just influence is not the question; his place in the pop earth is. In a guild perceived as indifferent and even hostile to minorities, rappers like KRS-One and Water ice Cube are the voice of an increasingly frustrated young black America; Vanilla Water ice, on the other paw, offers hands digestible raps nearly girls, cars and dancing. Aficionados know that Vanilla Water ice cannot matchthe cleverness of 50. Fifty. 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-quondam Vanilla Ice has managed to go a huge star since the release of his first major-label anthology, "To the Extreme" (SBK Records), in September. His debut single, "Water ice Ice Baby," was the first rap song to reach No. i on the pop singles nautical chart. By November he had bumped M. C. Hammer from his 21-week occupation of the top popular album slot, and he has held that position since.
Moreover, Vanilla Ice is in the midst of his outset major tour as a headliner (with a sold-out appearance Wed 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 however hot. The new tape, 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 organisation balked. No one's balking at present at Vanilla Ice's ability to sell records, and generate royalties.
Charles Koppelman, head of SBK Records and Pictures, is cyberbanking (literally) on the promise that Vanilla Water ice "is an incredibly magnetic star who tin be as of import a picture show star as he is a music star." After filming a cameo for the sequel to "Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtles," Vanilla Ice signed a one thousand thousand-dollar contract with SBK Pictures, formed specifically for his projection. 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 Water ice has been field of study to considerable scrutiny. The firestorm started on Nov. 18, when a front end-page article in The Dallas Morning News reported inaccuracies in the life story he had been feeding the printing. 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, every bit Robert Van Winkle, who spent most of his high-school years in an affluent Dallas suburb. The facts surfaced around the aforementioned fourth dimension that the pop duo Milli Vanilli confessed to not singing on their own multiplatinum album. In many minds, Vanilla Ice, with his sculpted pilus 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 actually crude and tumble? "I never said annihilation 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 loftier school as Luther (Luke) Campbell of the ii Live Crew? "I never said I went to the same loftier school as Luke. That's impossible. He'south five or six years older than I am. I did say that I went to one of the schools he attended."
Virtually the national motocross championships, of which the press can notice no evidence? "I won three national champions," he insists.
Vanilla Ice bristles at the suggestion that the media has put him on the defensive. Whatever rapper, merely specially a white rapper, needs a "street" credibility that Vanilla Ice'due south suburban upbringing doesn't automatically confer. "It doesn't matter," he says, and so manages to invoke and mangle 2 of rap'south most tired phrases at the same time: "It ain't where yous're from; it's where you lot're at. Bottom line: don't believe the hype."
But at that place's profit to exist made in all this contention: a Vanilla-dictated only ghost-written autobiography, "Ice by Ice" (Avon Books), volition be in stores adjacent week. His memoirs volition try to clarify the "where he's from" part (a non-then-long journey from his birth in Miami 22 years agone to his rebirth every bit big-time rapper and shortly-to-be motion-picture show star). Merely the "where he'due south at" question may exist more relevant.
Vanilla Ice wants to avoid beingness characterized as a rap wannabe who is, well, vanilla, and he is proud that audiences chant "go white male child" at concerts. "My neighborhood was predominantly black, my school was predominantly black. I got 'go white boy, get white boy' from Urban center Lights, a totally blackness club in Dallas. No other white person would gear up foot in that guild, just I performed there every night. My black friends in 7th grade chosen me Vanilla. I got it from them ."
Vanilla Ice did sally 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 social club's house disk jockey, and its doormen, Big Eastward. 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 managing director, John Bush, the yr-end slew of club dates, a warm-up to his current tour, drew an overwhelmingly white, suburban oversupply, many of whom may non 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 globe, merely the same words of encouragement ring eerily when the audience is 90 percent white.
These not-so-subtle racial dynamics brand 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 exercise with it, but not equally much as they say it does. Information technology depends on the contract yous sign with the record company. They can make you No. one if they button you enough."
Well, information technology'south not that simple. Recent developments in the hip-hop globe made the emergence of a sexy white rapper with such huge marketing potential almost inevitable.
Innovative artists like Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions and the Jungle Brothers have little opportunity to reach a larger audition ("Ice Ice Baby" was played on radio stations that had never presented rap before, which many critics interpreted equally a sign of racism). Few radio stations regularly plan rap, even those that seek black audiences, and established rap outlets have been drying upward. WBLS, New York Metropolis'due south leading black station, pushed its popular Friday-dark show from the 8 P.M.-to-midnight slot into the 2-to-6 A.1000. 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 exist 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 Water ice explains that "I don't know much most 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 person fantasy, with none of the deft metaphorical wordplay of, say, L. 50. Absurd J.: "I idea she was an affections and soft every bit a cream puff/ Until I seen her come out with the whip and handcuffs/ Breathin' downwardly my cervix I was scared to expiry/ The sweat from my body as it rolls downwards my cervix."
When he comes close to a political issue, Vanilla Ice is merely enough of a bad boy to tantalize, but -- nudge, nudge, wink, wink -- at that place's no existent problem here. In his massive striking, "Ice Water 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 "ix" (a nine-millimeter pistol), his friend a "estimate" (shotgun). Shots ring out, everyone scatters, the law arrive. The telltale line: "Law on the scene, yous know what I hateful/ They passed me upwardly, confronted all the dope fiends." Where many rappers certificate the real tensions between black youth and police force, Vanilla Ice, clean-cut and white, never has to worry almost being a suspect.
While critics say he is purposely sidestepping difficult issues to grab the pop charts, Vanilla Ice insists he does not write imitation-rap just specializes in a new type of rap. Militant rap "gets no airplay," he says. "That's clandestine 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 style I become now, and I've made the music the way I've wanted to go far. I merely thought of a fashion that hasn't been played out. I like to call it 'in a higher place-ground.' "
When asked if he sells more albums than critically praised artists considering he is a better rapper, Vanilla Ice displays unexpected modesty. "No, I wouldn't say I'm ameliorate. It's a question of unlike. I but thought of a new style. Vanilla Water ice. Above-ground."
Bated from the problems of race, resume and downright ugly reviews, what makes Vanilla Ice most defensive is the phrase "overnight success." "It might seem like that. I hateful, I never imagined my career would accept off like it has. But I've struggled. I had a first anthology out two or iii years ago, and we struggled to get a bargain before that. Recollect, I wrote 'Water ice Ice Baby' three and a half years ago. Many people don't know that." (Near of that outset album, released past the independent label Ultrax, institute its style onto the better-produced "To the Extreme.")
When he hits the stage, Vanilla Water ice compensates for any lack of musical and lyric-writing prowess. "When you come to a Vanilla Water ice show," he says, "yous become Vanilla Ice. I don't mean to talk bad virtually everyone, simply when you get to a New Kids on the Block show, who do you lot get?" Intermission. "Maurice Starr," he answers flatly, referring to the manager who writes nearly of their music and tightly orchestrates their shows. It is telling that Vanilla Ice compares himself to New Kids, a popular-marketing miracle for pre-teens, rather than beau rappers.
But Vanilla Ice is his own creation. He choreographs his ain team of dancers, writes lyrics, produces much of his music and refuses to lip-sync, fifty-fifty though his athletic dances leave him breathless. When opening for M. C. Hammer on his 1990 bout, Vanilla Ice surrounded himself with 3 male dancers; for his current world tour, he has five male and 3 female dancers, as well equally a live drummer. Surprisingly, his small-scale troupe generates the same energy level as M. C. Hammer's company of 30 or more than writhing bodies.
On stage, Vanilla Ice reaches out to audition members, raps enthusiastically and has perfected his stage churr. 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 frequently, the audience, largely teen-historic period 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 eternalize himself from the naysayers. The questions will remain, only and so will Vanilla Ice -- at to the lowest degree for a while. WORDS FROM THE ICEMAN
Rockman lovers driving Lamborghinis Jealous 'crusade I'k out getting mine Shay with a gauge and Vanilla with a nine Reading for the chumps on the wall The chumps acting sick because they're so full of viii balls Gunshots rang out like a bell I grabbed my nine -- All I heard were shells Falling on the physical existent fast Jumped in my car, slammed on the gas . . . Police on the scene, you know what I mean They passed me up, confronted all the dope fiends If there was a problem, yo, I'll solve it Cheque out the hook while my D.J. revolves it. -- From the single "Ice Ice Babe" (Copyright $; 1990 QPM Music/Water ice Baby Music/Later Shock Music)
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/03/arts/why-the-world-is-after-vanilla-ice.html
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