|
|
|
|
|
Vanilla Ice
Robert Van Winkle was born in 1968 in Florida. One of the very first credible white rappers, he arrived claiming a crime-addled background in a black "borough" and scored hits with "Ice Ice Baby", "Play That Funky Music" and "Tammy Faye". In 1989 he released the lost album "Hooked", under the name Vanilla Ice, on an independent label. Just 48,000 copies were sold.
Ice struck gold with "Ice Ice Baby", a track which heavily sampled Queen, over which Van Winkle rapped away about how great he was. The parent album, "To The Extreme" (a re-jigging of "Hooked") became the first CD-only chart-topping album and sold a staggering eleven million copies. By the end of the year, Ice had become the most popular rapper in the charts, and dolls of him lined the toy stores.
Van Winkle didn't think to ask Queen for permission to pilfer wholesale the baseline to "Under Pressure", and had to make a financial settlement. The follow-up to "Ice Ice Baby", a cover of WIld Cherry's "Play That Funky Music" similarly forgot to credit its writer, Rob Parissi, so Van Winkle was back in court, the absent-minded old moose. In 1991, "Extremely Live" was released. However, this meant that essentially the same set of songs had been brought out three times. Worse, Van Winkle's apparent 'street' upbringing was revealed to be an image-enhancing fabrication. He was really raised in Texas, at the R.L Turner High School. That year, Van Winkle also starred in the hit movie "Secret of the Ooze" and duetted with Naomi Campbell. In 1994, the album "Mind Blowin'" was released with a bizarre 'dreadlocked gangster' image to go with it. The record sunk, and later that year the rapper made two bids at suicide. Death Row Records Boss Suge Knight then dangled Ice over a balcony until he signed over royalties from "Ice Ice Baby".
Early material is strewn over Ebay and there ain't nothing you can't pick up for under a fiver. The new album (below) can be snapped up from the official site.
The latest album by Vanilla Ice (who now looks uncannily like Andy Frankham)
In 1996, following a revival on a Bloodhound Gang track, Vanilla Ice released a new album, "Hard To Swallow" including "Ice Ice Baby '96". It was followed some years later by a double album called "Bipolar" and last years "Platinum Underground" which featured a shameless cover of the Destiny's Child track "Survivor". Ice was now signed to popular label Psychopathic Records. MTV aired a special in the late nineties called "MTV's Most Lamest" in which bad videos were 'retired'. Van Winkle was invited on to destroy the tape of "Ice Ice Baby" live on-air with a baseball bat. After being mocked by the show's presenters however, he turned the bat on the set and began to smash that up instead. Live transmission swiftly cut to an ad break. In 2001 he was arrested for pulling his wife's hair. The following year he hit the headlines when his pet wallaroo, Bucky, escaped from his pen and went on the rampage. Van Winkle now has two children, Dusti Raine and Keelee Breeze. In 2004 he appeared on "The Farm" and wanked a pig.
Van Winkle with Bucky the Wallaroo
|
|
|
