Now that the party is jumping/
With the bass kicked in and the vegas are pumpin’/
Quick to the point to the point no faking/
I’m cooking MC’s like a pound of bacon/
Burning them if you ain’t quick and nimble/
I go crazy when I hear a cymbal/
And a hi-hat with a souped up tempo/
I’m on a roll and it’s time to go solo
Vanilla Ice
“Ice Ice Baby”
To The Extreme
1. Ice Ice Baby
2. Yo Vanilla
3. Stop That Train
4. Hooked
5. Ice Is Workin’ It
6. Life Is a Fantasy
7. Play That Funky Music
8. Dancin’
9. Go Ill
10. It’s a Party
11. Juice to Get Loose Boy
12. Ice Cold
13. Rosta Man
14. I Love You
15. Havin’ a Roni
In 1990, you couldn’t walk down the street without hearing that beat. You know that beat:
Dum-Dum-Dum-Da-Da-Dum-Dum
Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum-Da-Da-Dum-Dum
Then the whispers kicked in…
Ice, Ice, Baby…
The debut song by Robert Van Winkle, a.k.a. Vanilla Ice, was a megahit on a scale rarely seen. People who looked down their noses at Hip-Hop as “that ghetto music” suddenly had a clean-cut White male they could now relate to. Toss in a bass line from a classic collaboration between Queen and David Bowie, and you had a recipe for success.
Robbie got his start and his moniker in Dallas, dancing and rapping at City Lights. You may not believe this, but before he became the “Elvis of Rap”, Ice actually had some credibility in the ‘hood. A White boy who could dance like a brother, and rap to boot? Get the f*ck outta here! But it was true. Back in the late 80’s, if a national rap act came through Dallas, there were two possibilities on who would open for them: Nemesis or Vanilla Ice. Ice impressed so many people coming through town that he began to develop a rep. Chuck D once said in Rolling Stone that he was so impressed by Ice and by the marketing possibilities that he tried to sign him, but by that point Ice had a deal with SBK Records.
In those days, Ice wasn’t wearing castoffs from Hammer’s wardrobe. He was rockin’ Fila and Puma gear, with a thick rope chain around his neck. Look up “wigger” in the dictionary and you’ll find a picture of Ice from 1989. It wasn’t until he began going megaplatinum that you started seeing him in genie pants and sequins, thus instantly killing all credibility in the hood. The final nail in the coffin was an article in The Dallas Morning News refuting most of the stories Ice had told the media, such as growing up poor in the ghettos of Miami (he’d grown up middle-class in Lake Highlands, a Dallas suburb), and having once been stabbed. Toss in an embarrassing appearance in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (“Ninja Rap”, anyone?) and a disastrously bad movie of his own (Cool As Ice), and Ice was suddenly the bad joke of rap.
To this day, you’re hard-pressed to find anyone that admits they owned To The Extreme. And yet, it sold over 10 million copies. At one point in history, it was the biggest-selling rap album of all time. But if you went by people’s denials of ever owning the album, you’d think it would have been lucky to sell 100 copies.
Well, let me man up. I owned a copy of To The Extreme. Hell, I owned a copy of his first album, Hooked. Why wouldn’t I? Here was a Dallas boy breaking big in an industry that treated Texas like we didn’t exist (this was before the Geto Boys had blown up and put Texas on the map). Sure, he wasn’t the greatest rapper, but he made songs that were bangin’ for the clubs. He eventually took the easy road, cashing in instead of solidifying his place in Hip-Hop. But you can’t be mad at him for that. Contrary to what usually befalls artists who get run out of the industry, Ice is still a rich man. He took his cash, invested in the market and real estate, and is now living comfortably. He’s still trying a comeback, which has been less than successful, although he’s agreed to be a part of VH1’s “Remaking” show, which will follow him as he tries to make another comeback.
Don’t feel embarrassed to admit you had this joint back in the day. We all did. If you didn’t, you knew someone who did. You knew the words, danced to it in the clubs. You watched the video as it played about 37 million times on MTV. You had the bass cranked up in the hooptie, noddin along as Ice rapped his way into infamy.
Yo, let’s get outta here/
Word to ya mother
