Vanilla Ice
Encyclopedia
Robert Matthew Van Winkle (born October 31, 1967), best known by his stage name
Vanilla Ice, is an American rapper
, extreme athlete
and home improvement television personality. Born in South Dallas
, and raised in Texas and South Florida, Van Winkle released his debut album, Hooked, in 1989 through Ichiban Records
, before signing a contract with SBK Records
, a record label
of the EMI Group which released a reformatted version of the album under the title To the Extreme
. Van Winkle's single "Ice Ice Baby
" was the first hip hop single to top the Billboard
charts
.
Although Van Winkle was successful, he later regretted his business arrangements with SBK, which had paid him to adopt a more commercial appearance to appeal to a mass audience and published fabricated biographical information without his knowledge. After surviving a suicide
attempt, Van Winkle was inspired to change his musical style and lifestyle. While later albums by Van Winkle haven't charted or featured much radio airplay because of their less mainstream, rock
-oriented sound, Vanilla Ice has had a loyal underground following. In 2009, Van Winkle began hosting The Vanilla Ice Project
on DIY Network
. His latest album WTF – Wisdom, Tenacity & Focus
was released in August 2011. Van Winkle is currently signed to Psychopathic Records
.
. Van Winkle never knew his real father, and was given the family name of the man his mother was married to at the time of his birth. When Van Winkle was four, his mother divorced him and he grew up moving between Dallas and Miami. Van Winkle's new stepfather in Miami worked at a car dealership. Hip hop
had an impact on Van Winkle at an early age, saying "It's a very big passion of mine because I love poetry. I was just heavily influenced by that whole movement and it's molded me into who I am today." Between the ages of 13 and 14, Van Winkle practiced breakdancing, which led to his friends nicknaming him "Vanilla", as he was the only one in the group that wasn't African American
. Although he disliked the nickname, it stuck. Shortly afterward, Van Winkle started battle rapping
at parties and because of his rhymes, his friends started calling him "MC Vanilla", however when he became a member of a breakdance troupe, Van Winkle's stage name was "Vanilla Ice" combining his nickname "Vanilla" with one of his breakdance moves, the "Ice". When Van Winkle's stepfather was offered a better job in Carrollton, Texas
, he moved back to Texas with his mother. He attended R. L. Turner High School
for a short time before dropping out. When Van Winkle was not learning to ride motorbikes, he was dancing as a street performer with his breakdancing group, now called The Vanilla Ice Posse. Van Winkle wrote "Ice Ice Baby
" at the age of 16, basing its lyrics on a weekend he had with friend and disc jockey D-Shay in South Florida. The lyrics describe a drive-by shooting
and praise Van Winkle's rhyming skills.
, The D.O.C.
, Tone Lōc
, 2 Live Crew
, Paula Abdul
, Sinbad
and MC Hammer.
In January 1987, Van Winkle was stabbed five times during a scuffle outside of City Lights, after spending ten days at the hospital, Ice signed a contract with the the owner of City Lights, Tommy Quon and his management company, Ultrax. Quon saw commercial potential in Van Winkle's rapping and dancing skills. Buying studio time with Quon's earnings from City Lights and money Van Winkle had earned selling MDMA, they recorded songs that had been perfected on stage by Ice and his acquaintances with various producers, including Khayree
. The two year production was distributed by an independent record company called Ichiban Records
in 1989. Van Winkle's debut album Hooked sold 48,000 copies in the south." Play That Funky Music
" was released as the album's first single, with "Ice Ice Baby" appearing as the B-side
. Tommy Quon personally sent out the single to various radio stations around the US, but the single was seldom played and when it was, it did not get the reaction Quon was hoping for. When disc jockey
Darrell Jaye in Georgia
played "Ice Ice Baby" instead of the single's A-side, the song gained a quick fanbase and other radio stations followed suit. Quon financed $8,000 for the production of a music video
for "Ice Ice Baby", which received heavy airplay by The Box, increasing public interest in the song. Van Winkle later opened for EPMD
, Ice-T
, Stetsasonic
and Sir Mix-A-Lot
on the Stop the Violence Tour.
Following the success of "Ice Ice Baby", record producer
Suge Knight
and two bodyguards arrived at The Palm
in West Hollywood
, where Van Winkle was eating. After shoving Van Winkle's bodyguards aside, Knight and his own bodyguards sat down in front of Van Winkle, staring at him before finally asking "How you doin'?" Similar incidents were repeated on several occasions. Eventually, Knight showed up at Van Winkle's hotel suite on the fifteenth floor of the Bel Age Hotel, accompanied by a member of the Oakland Raiders
. According to Van Winkle, Knight took him out on the balcony by himself, and implied that he would throw him off the balcony unless he signed the publishing rights to the song over to Knight; Knight used Van Winkle's money to help fund Death Row Records
.
, to sign Van Winkle to Def Jam
, but Van Winkle later signed a contract with SBK Records
in 1990. SBK remixed and re-recorded Hooked under the title To the Extreme
. The reissue contained new artwork and music. According to Van Winkle, SBK paid him to adopt a more commercial, conventional appearance. This led Van Winkle to later regret his business agreements with SBK.
SBK Record executive Monte Lipman
stated that he received calls from radio stations reporting over 200 phone calls requesting Ice Ice Baby. SBK wanted Ice on the road as soon as possible. MC Hammer
, an old acquaintance from his club days, had Ice on as an opening act on his tour.
To the Extreme became the fastest selling hip hop
album of all time, peaking at #1 on the Billboard 200
. The album spent 16 weeks on the charts
, and sold eleven million copies. Reviews of To the Extreme were mixed. Entertainment Weekly
reviewer Mim Udovitch gave the album a B, citing "Ice Ice Baby", "Play That Funky Music", "Dancin'" and "It's a Party" as the album's highlights. Robert Christgau
gave the album a C− rating, writing that Van Winkle's "suave sexism, fashionably male supremacist rather than dangerously obscene, is no worse than his suave beats". Criticizing the technique and style of Vanilla Ice, Allrovi reviewer Steve Huey wrote:
In late 1990, Van Winkle began an eight-month relationship with Madonna
, and appeared in photographs for her book, Sex
. In the height of Van Winkle's popularity, SBK licensed a 12" doll which was made by THQ. In January 1991, he was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live
. Van Winkle branched out into the film industry with an appearance in the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
, which he later called "one of the coolest experiences" of his career. Van Winkle was very secretive about his personal life, with the intention of protecting his family. When a Dallas Morning News reporter asked Van Winkle what his mother’s profession was, he replied "None of your fucking business". In an attempt to rectify this, his former label wrote a fake biography in his name and tried to pass it off as his official life story without his knowledge. While on tour in 1991, Van Winkle found out that SBK had instigated the publication of the biography which detailed false biographical information, including claims that he had attended school with Luther Campbell
and over exaggerating his living conditions in Miami, which Ice later had to debunk by himself.
Van Winkle's second major release was the live album
Extremely Live
, released in March 1991. The album was a live recording during Vanilla Ice's performance in Miami during his To The Extreme tour. Premiering new songs like Rollin' in My 5.0
, Road To My Riches and Satisfaction, the album peaked at #30 on the Billboard 200
, but it received mainly negative reviews, with Entertainment Weekly
reviewer David Browne
calling it "one of the most ridiculous albums ever released", comparing it to The Best of Marcel Marceau
, an album which consisted of two sides of silence opened by brief applause. According to Browne, Extremely Live "affords you the chance to hear inane stage patter [...] and unaccompanied drumming, during which, one assumes, Ice and his posse are onstage dancing." Monte Lipman later stated that SBK only released the live disc to make more money from Ice's fame. In April 1991, Van Winkle began to film the SBK produced Cool as Ice
, in which he played a leading role.
Cool as Ice opened on October 18, 1991 in 393 theaters in the United States
, grossing $638,000, ranking at #14 among the week's new releases. Reviews of the film were negative. Film website Rotten Tomatoes
, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a score of 8%. Van Winkle received a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst New Star. SBK stated that they overexposed Ice and Van Winkle decided to stop taking their business advices as well as distancing himself from the image that SBK was trying to create for him. In late 1991, Ice appeared in the Circus of the Stars and Sideshow, driving his motorcycle through a wall of fire. While his fame in the United States had severely dropped, Ice continued performing to sold out crowds in his 1992 world tour, playing in South America
, Europe
, Australia
and Asia
, premiering new songs like "Get Loose", "The Wrath", "Now & Forever", "Where the Dogs At? (All Night Long)", "Minutes of Power" and "Iceman Path". After a performance in Acapulco
, the city honored Van Winkle with a medal that represented "all the respect and admiration to [Van Winkle's] music and to [him] as an artist from the Mexican people". Van Winkle also served as a spokesperson for Nike
and Coca-Cola
throughout 1991 and 1992.
and Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch
. Together with Zero, the new album started production yet again, scrapping a lot of finished songs and re-doing others. Zero would help create new beats to songs that Van Winkle had already performed live such as "The Wrath", while other songs like "Iceman Path" and "Get Loose" were left unchanged. In 1993, Ice toured Eastern-Europe again and premiered songs off his upcoming album in St. Petersburg, Russia
in front of President Boris Yeltsin
. During months of non-stop touring, Van Winkle and the remaining back-up dancers smoked cannabis
regularly after a show.
By 1994, Van Winkle received less publicity and became removed from the public spotlight. After becoming more interested with the Rastafari movement
, Van Winkle became a vegetarian, grew dreadlocks
and talked more openly about smoking cannabis. On March 22, 1994, Van Winkle released his second studio album, Mind Blowin. Reviews were unfavorable. Entertainment Weekly reviewer James Bernard called the album "more clunky than funky". Rolling Stone
reviewer Danyel Smith praised the song "Get Loose" as "snappy", writing that although the lyrics are "inane", "the song is a thumping party, one of the few places where Ice loosens up. He sounds solid at the beginning of 'The Wrath' as well [...] In 'Now and Forever,' a wet dream kind of song, Ice goes back to goofy lyrics." Allrovi reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine
wrote that "There isn't a single moment that establishes a distinct musical identity, and the whole thing is rather embarrassing." Primus
bassist Les Claypool
stated in response to Van Winkle's cannabis-oriented lyrics: "That's all fine and dandy and cute, but it could be misconstrued and manipulated by the wrong people." When asked about the drug oriented sound years later, Vanilla Ice said "A lot of the record is drug oriented because I was doing a lot of drugs at the time". Shortly afterward, SBK went bankrupt
.
At around this time, Van Winkle began using ecstasy, cocaine
and heroin. During periods of heavy drug use, Van Winkle received many tattoo
s from artist
acquaintances. According to Van Winkle, he "was in [his] binge days. [He] didn't even realize how many [he] was getting". Van Winkle attempted suicide with a heroin overdose
on July 4, 1994 but was revived by his friends. After being revived, Van Winkle decided that it was time to change his lifestyle. As a symbol of his attempt to begin anew, he got a tattoo of a leaf on his stomach. After expanding his Mind Blowin’ tour overseas in 1995, Van Winkle sold his estate in California
and took a break from music, rather focusing on motocross
ing and jet skiing in Florida. By the summer Van Winkle was the world's No. 6-ranked sit-down Jet Ski racer, competing nearly every weekend and earning a Kawasaki
sponsorship. He met future wife Laura Giaritta a year after his suicide attempt at a Fourth of July party in 1995.
Uncertain about his future career, Van Winkle studied real estate and started working on the side renovating and selling houses. In late 1995, Van Winkle set up a recording studio in Miami and joined a grunge
band, Pickin Scabz. The name was set to reflect Van Winkle's career and how he was healing from his suicide attempt and that he was now "picking up the pieces". Van Winkle expressed an interest in performing hip hop-influenced rock music, but found that the band was unable to produce the sound he was looking for. In 1996, long time associate and friend Monte Lipman signed Van Winkle as an artist for Universal Republic Records. He did guest vocals with no stage name for the song "Boom" by Bloodhound Gang
on their CD One Fierce Beer Coaster
. Later that year, Van Winkle opened up a Miami-based Extreme sport
store that focused mostly on water sports and surfing, which he and girlfriend Laura named after his first mainstream album, '2 The Xtreme'. On March 30, 1997, Van Winkle married Laura. His relationship and different professions helped anchor Van Winkle, who thought about leaving music behind just as he did hard drugs.
, who had become known for producing music by Deftones
, Korn
, Limp Bizkit
and Sepultura
. Robinson and Van Winkle shared an interest in motocross
racing. Monte Lipman hoped that Robinson would produce a new Vanilla Ice album. According to Robinson, others had attempted to discourage him from working with Van Winkle, saying it might hurt his reputation. Rather than being dissuaded, their fear encouraged Robinson who agreed to work with Van Winkle. In an interview, Robinson stated "It's the most punk-rock
thing you could do."
Van Winkle started talking very openly about his early business ventures in interviews while the album was being recorded. Appearing in interviews and TV documentaries about his former image, selling out and his run-ins with Suge Knight. Despite not being happy with his old image, Winkle stated that he never had a problem with his older music. Van Winkle decided against changing his stage name to something else, as he felt no need to run from his past, despite being uneasy with some of it and started performing again, booking a hundred shows a year.
Van Winkle's third studio album, Hard to Swallow
, featured a darker sound and lyrics than Van Winkle's previous work as well as various mixtures of different styles of hip hop and hard rock which caught the media's attention. Van Winkle attracted a whole new audience when he started touring again, some who were even unfamiliar with his more mainstream sound. Despite getting its own audience and going Gold, reviews of the album were generally negative. Jon Pareles of The New York Times
wrote "The most earnest new song, Scars, condemns an abusive father. The sentiments would sound more genuine if Korn hadn't gotten there first." Richard Torres of Rolling Stone
gave the album two out of five stars, writing that while "nothing, however, can redeem Ice's wack boasting," the album "isn't half-bad." In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide
, Rob Kemp gave the album three out of five stars, writing that it contained Van Winkle's "most convincing music". A lot of executives at SonyBMG were predicting that the album would do better than 'To The Extreme'. In promotion of Hard to Swallow, Van Winkle toured with a seven-piece live band which included bassist Scott Shriner
. The band opened with rock-oriented material from Hard to Swallow and concluded with older hip hop songs. The setlist also included "Power", based upon Led Zeppelin
's "Immigrant Song
". Van Winkle said that writing the songs and performing them were like therapy, as he had tried to hide his anger when making his older songs but Robinson was the first producer who told him to use it to create.
In 1999, the music video for "Ice Ice Baby" was "retired" on the MTV
special 25 Lame, in which Van Winkle himself was asked to destroy the video's master tape. When Van Winkle was given a baseball bat, he ended up destroying not only the film but the show's entire set as well. In 2001, DJ ReAnimator remixed "Ice Ice Baby" with Vanilla Ice re-doing his vocals for the track. Ice Ice Baby 2001 was released as a single and music video for the European market spawning a wave of new overseas interest in Vanilla Ice.
Having attracted a following outside of his former mainstream audience, Van Winkle began recording independently, despite still being signed at Universal. During a recording session, Ice met the all-female American
hard rock
band
from Southern California
, Betty Blowtorch
. The late Bianca Halstead
bonded with Van Winkle and asked if he wanted to contribute a rap interlude to the their track Size Queen. On Van Winkle's collaboration with the band, lead vocalist and bassist Halstead was quoted saying "I asked him if he could rap over [the track] and he said he can rap over anything. And he could!" Per his stepfather's request, Van Winkle started working with his former manager Tommy Quon again, while hoping to re-create some of the magic that they worked hard on in the early 90's, Van Winkle denied any interest in trying to become big again and that his only passion was music, not fame.
In May 2000, Van Winkle wrestled in a match promoted by Juggalo Championship Wrestling, then known as Juggalo Championshit Wrestling, filling in for Insane Clown Posse
member Joseph Utsler
, who had been injured during a match. MTV News
reported that Insane Clown Posse would make an appearance on Van Winkle's next album, tentatively titled Bomb Tha System. In October 2000, Van Winkle announced that his next album would be titled Skabz, and that Chuck D
was confirmed to appear on the album. It was initially planned as a double album
featuring a disc containing rock-oriented material and a disc of hip hop songs. In July 2001, Van Winkle performed at the second Gathering of the Juggalo
s. On October 23, 2001, Skabz and Bomb Tha System were released as a together as Bi-Polar. The album also featured La the Darkman
, Perla, Insane Poetry
and Bob Kakaha
. Bradley Torreano of Allrovi disliked the album, criticizing it as "wildly uneven and at times hilariously bad", but also stating "Vanilla Ice is still better than a lot of the rap-metal bands that erupted in 2000/2001." and the rap beats on Bomb Tha System "are surprisingly solid". In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, Rob Kemp gave the album one out of five stars, calling the album "utterly listless". According to a Sony BMG executive, sales of Bi-Polar were "not bad...for Vanilla Ice. That's pretty respectable. Seriously."
After the release of Bi-Polar, Van Winkle left Sony-Universal to be with Ultrax full time. With Quon back as manager, Van Winkle was scheduled to appear in various reality TV programs. Ice, still an entertainer at heart felt that the experience would be good for him. In 2002 he appeared on Celebrity Boxing, fighting Todd Bridges
under the name 'Bi-Polar'. In 2003, he appeared in five episodes of Hollywood Squares
, eight episodes on 'The Farm' and three episodes of Celebrity Bull Riding Challenge as well as a cameo in The New Guy
in 2002.
Van Winkle continued motocrossing and auditioned for the 2002 X Games in the freestyle division and was placed seventh at the 2003 Suzuki Crossover challenge. In 2003, Van Winkle contributed vocals to "Off the Chain" by 7x70, a side project of Iron Maiden
drummer Nicko McBrain
and Anthrax
guitarist Dan Spitz
. A demo
of the song was leaked
in June. In 2003, Ultrax reissued Bomb Tha System (the second part of "Bi-Polar") under the title Hot Sex, which was a single from the original album.
From January to February 2004, Van Winkle appeared on the reality television
series The Surreal Life
. Although much of the series was staged, Van Winkle found the experience to be therapeutic, stating that a comment made by Tammy Faye Messner during filming; "We are who we are because of who we were" helped him accept his past. After filming 'Surreal Life', Van Winkle co-starred in the drug comedy The Helix...Loaded
, an independent film parodying The Matrix
and other movies made in the late 90's/early 00's. Van Winkle's song "Hot Sex" was featured on the soundtrack and the film featured a reference to "Ice Ice Baby".
On August 2, 2005, Van Winkle released his fifth studio album, Platinum Underground
. Van Winkle stated that the title of the album reflected the fact that he could maintain a fanbase without mainstream airplay. Allrovi reviewer Rob Theakston panned the album, writing that it "has more bad spots in it than most". The album featured the song "Survivor" which had premiered on an NBC special produced in the UK entitled Hit Me Baby One More Time. Songs like Trailer Park Mullet Wars and Step Up or Shut Up were a hybrid mix of different heavy metal
sounds, while Say Goodbye and Bounce were new school hip hop. The rest of the album featured mixes of Horrorcore
, Reggae
and Hardcore hip hop
. After getting requests to do Ninja Rap live, Ice decided to make a song entitled Ninja Rap 2 (also known as Go Ninja Go) which was set to be a hardcore remix. Despite the name, the song has very little connections to Van Vinkle's original 1991 single, but rather stays true to Ice's current lyricism, where Ice talks about his appreciation to his fans, his love to perform at clubs and playing at the Gathering of the Juggalos
with Insane Clown Posse
. Ninja Rap 2 was the first song to be released from Platinum Underground and was available to download for free off of Ice's official website.
In 2007, Van Winkle returned to a spin-off to The Surreal Life entitled The Surreal Life: Fame Games
where he again trashed the set after being voted off. In September 2008, Van Winkle signed a contract with Cleopatra Records
, recording the cover album
Vanilla Ice Is Back! at the label's request. The album was released on November 4, 2008, and contained covers of songs by Public Enemy, House of Pain
, Bob Marley
and Cypress Hill
. IGN
reviewer Spence D. called the album "an embarrassing endeavor that sounds like it should have stayed locked inside Ice's studio (or at the very least leaked on YouTube
and passed off as a piss take)." On February 27, 2009, Van Winkle performed as part of a joint performance with MC Hammer in Orem, Utah
called "Hammer Pants And Ice", which featured 24 dancers and a full choir.
account that he had signed a contract with StandBy Records
; however, Van Winkle later left the label. Ice was a special musical guest at the 2010 National Television Awards in January, performing with Jedward
for their remix and debut single "Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby)
". Van Winkle also recorded his verse for their album Planet Jedward
and appeared in the music video. Vanilla Ice was a part of The Back2Kool concert tour with Turbo B
and MC Hammer, playing worldwide in late 2010. Ice reunited with his former DJ; Floyd 'Earthquake' Brown for the shows overseas. In early 2011, Vanilla Ice appeared on the sixth season
of the UK show Dancing on Ice
as well as various ice skating tours surrounding the show.
In 2009, Van Winkle started filming a reality television series called The Vanilla Ice Project
which premiered on DIY Network
on October 14, 2010. The season is focused on renovating a house in Palm Beach, Florida with each episode dedicated to a different room in the house. In 2011, Van Winkle published a book on the subject, Vanilla Ice Project – Real Estate Guide on how to succeed in real estate. The book was made available as a free digital download on his real estate website. The second season will air January 2012.
In June 2011, Van Winkle filmed a role in the film I Hate You, Dad
, portraying Antonio, Adam Sandler
's best friend from high school. In August, Van Winkle performed at the 2011 Gathering of the Juggalos, where it was officially announced that he had signed with Psychopathic Records
. His sixth studio album, WTF
, was released on August 19 through Radium Records. While the record featured an array of different styles, like other recent Vanilla Ice albums, it also featured Ice's return to Electronica
, with songs like "Turn It Up", "Rock Star Party", "Nightmare Disco" and "Cadillac Ninjas".
In December 2011, Van Winkle will portray Captain Hook in the Chatham, Kent Central Theatre pantomime production of Peter Pan, in the role that once belonged to Henry Winkler
. He also turned on the Christmas Lights for Rochester, Kent in Rochester Castle
, as part of the promotion for the panto. Van Winkle will record an album for Psychopathic with production by Mike E. Clark
. Joseph Bruce
stated that it will be released between the end of 2011 and early 2012.
. He dated Madonna for eight months in late 1990. Van Winkle married Laura Giaritta in 1997; the couple split in 2011. They have two daughters, Dusti Rain (born 1998) and KeeLee Breeze (born 2000). Van Winkle is a Juggalo
and a Vegetarian
.
on firearm charges, after threatening a homeless man, James N. Gregory, with a pistol. Gregory had approached Van Winkle's car outside of a supermarket and attempted to sell him a silver chain. Van Winkle and his bodyguard were charged with three weapons offenses. Van Winkle pleaded no contest
.
In January 2001, Van Winkle was arrested by police in Davie, Florida
for assault
ing his wife, Laura. According to the criminal complaint, Van Winkle and his wife argued as they drove on Interstate 595
. Van Winkle admitted to pulling hair from her head to prevent her from jumping out of the truck's window. He pleaded guilty to charges of disorderly conduct four months later, and was sentenced to probation and ordered to attend family therapy
sessions.
Van Winkle's pet wallaroo, Bucky, and pet goat, Pancho, escaped from his Port St. Lucie, Florida home in November 2004. After wandering around local streets for over a week, the animals were caught, and returned to Ice. He had to pay a $220 fine for expired pet tags, and an undisclosed fine for the escape of the animals.
Van Winkle appeared in West Palm Beach court on September 2007 to be arraigned for driving with an expired license. In the months leading up to the court hearing, Ice had been pulled over for doing 74 in a 45-mph zone, violating high-occupancy vehicle lane
restrictions and having illegally tinted car windows.
On April 10, 2008, Van Winkle was arrested in Palm Beach County on a battery charge for allegedly kicking and hitting his wife. He was released the following day after she declared that her husband had only pushed her. In court, the couple's neighbor, Frank Morales, stated that it was merely a verbal argument. Van Winkle was ordered by a Florida court to stay away from his wife following his arrest, and to communicate with his children only if Morales accompanied him. The judge told Van Winkle that he could only contact his wife via telephone. On April 29, 2008, Van Winkle's lawyers, Bradford Cohen and Joseph LoRusso, were able to get the case dropped after providing the state attorney with evidence that conflicted with what was originally reported.
. Van Winkle performs with a live drummer and DJ, and sometimes sprays his audience with bottled water. Van Winkle's performances often feature an inflatable grim reaper balloon, a dancer in a clown mask, and confetti thrown into the audience. Describing his performances, Van Winkle stated "It's high energy, stage diving, pyrotechnics, girls showing their breasts. It's crazy party atmosphere."
Van Winkle stated that his musical style was influenced by underground music
, rather than mainstream music, and that his influences included hip hop and funk
artists such as Funkadelic
, Rick James
, Roger Troutman
, Egyptian Lover
and Parliament
. Van Winkle is a big fan of 50's and 60's Reggae and Bob Marley
's work and has also stated that he enjoys Rage Against the Machine
, Slipknot
and System of a Down
.
Van Winkle sometimes plays bass
, drums
and keyboards
on studio recordings. Vanilla Ice refereed to his mainstream music as "above-ground" rather than underground, as he tried to make danceable beats and removed expletives so that the songs could reach a wider audience. A lot of his early hits had Ice boasting sexual conquests, in 1991, Van Winkle was quoted "I rap about what I know. Girls and stuff. That's what is going through my head.". Ice's lyricism evolved with him and when asked about his darker sound in 2002, Ice replied; "Music is about reflection and I’m just reflecting my life and everything it’s been and there’s no way I’m going to be able to stress what I want and mean over a break beat, you know, it’s too emotional and it’s too intense, so you have to have the intensity of the band, it’s like a symphony, you know, you have to build on the intense parts, and so it just wasn’t going to happen, to come extreme over some hip hop record, so to exercise my demons I had to have the band."
, 3rd Bass
and House of Pain
, Van Winkle was one of the earliest white rappers to attain major success. Chuck D
has credited Van Winkle as a regional breakthrough, stating "He broke through in the mid-South, in a Southern area in Texas, in something that was kind of indigenous to that hip-hop culture down there. He just doesn’t get credit for it." Vanilla Ice was one of the first Caucasian rappers to gain worldwide fame and recognition and the first solo white rapper to reach the Billboard 100. After Van Winkle's early success on radio, Chuck D remembers "When ["Ice, Ice, Baby"] came out, black people liked it until they found out he was white, and three years later, no one would admit to buying his record." Radio personality Casey Kasem
considered Vanilla Ice the #1 Rap Star in history.
In 1991, 3rd Bass released a single called "Pop Goes the Weasel
", and in the lyrics comparing Van Winkle unfavorably to Elvis Presley
. The song's music video featured Henry Rollins
as Van Winkle, who is depicted as being assaulted by 3rd Bass. Del tha Funkee Homosapien
referred to Van Winkle in the lyrics of "Pissin' on Your Steps", which appeared on his 1991 debut album I Wish My Brother George Was Here
. Similar to 'Pop Goes the Weasel', the song negatively makes a connection between Van Winkle and Elvis, while saying Ice alongside MC Hammer are mocking hip hop by being commercial. Van Winkle responded to "Pop Goes the Weasel" with his 1992 song "The Wrath" and to many of his other critics by stating that they were simply jealous of his early success. He repeated a message to his critics on the Arsenio Hall show telling the critics who thought he would never make it that they could "kiss [his] white ass." In the intro on De La Soul
's album De La Soul Is Dead
, Ice's dance moves are complimented. In the 1992 song "Scenario" by A Tribe Called Quest
, Phife Dawg
expresses unbelievability over Ice's Platinum status. Vanilla Ice answered back in the song Hit 'em Hard.
While some business decisions with SBK hurt Van Winkle's reputation in the States, he continued to remain a very sought after personality in Europe
. He was the first rapper to perform in China
and the first Indian hip hop song, "Thanda Thanda Pani" (Cold Cold Water) by Baba Sehgal
was inspired heavily by Vanilla Ice's music and style. New Line Cinema
had written a role specially for Van Winkle in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
, but scheduling conflicts with Van Winkle's To The Extreme Tour forced the role to be scrapped from the script. Michael Bay
, who had directed Van Winkle in his music video for "I Love You", planned to have the rapper appear in a cameo in the 2007 film Transformers but Van Winkle was busy touring. Robert Van Winkle appears as a video game character in Championship Motocross released in 2001 on PlayStation 2
. Limp Bizkit
frontman Fred Durst
stated "If it wasn't for Vanilla Ice, none of us white boys would be here today.". Former Ultimate Fighting Championship
light heavyweight
champion Chuck 'The Iceman' Lidell
used Ice's song Too Cold for his entrance to the ring.
DJ Buzz Fuzz sampled Vanilla Ice's vocals from his 1990 song "Ice is Working It" for his song "The Intro Killer". Ice is Working It was also featured in the film Little Black Book
. Rapper G-Child, best known for her appearance on ego trip's The (White) Rapper Show
, has credited Van Winkle as being a major influence on her work. After meeting Van Winkle in 2000, G-Child performed freestyle rap
s at six of Van Winkle's performances, and opened for him four times. After signing with Psychopathic Records, Violent J mentioned that Insane Clown Posse were long time fans of Ice's work; “We were bumping him way before "Ice Ice Baby" blew up. We were bumping him when he had his first record out on Ichiban. Shaggy had the vinyl and we used to bump that shit up in his room. It felt like two summers before that shit blew up.” On a Halloween
themed episode of SmackDown, John Cena
dressed as Vanilla Ice performing a freestyle rap
. Ice Ice Baby and Havin a Roni are featured in the video game DJ Hero
. In 2011, Virginia Beach rappers Gates and HD released a single and music video named after Vanilla Ice.
Vanilla Ice has been referenced in various Hollywood films and television shows. In Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
, Vanilla Ice is seen frozen next to Powers in the cryogenic laboratory. Vince Vaughn
's character in Be Cool
was loosely based on Vanilla Ice, even parodying the urban myth that Ice was hung upside down over a hotel balcony. In the 2008 film Step Brothers
, Adam Scott's
character wins a high school talent show by dancing and lip syncing to "Ice Ice Baby". It was revealed in the seventh season of Friends
that Chandler Bing
was in first place in a Vanilla Ice lookalike contest while Ross Geller
was in fourth place. Seth Green
voiced Vanilla Ice in an episode of Robot Chicken
, where the cast of Surreal Life go to Middle-earth
from The Lord of the Rings
where Ice is squashed by an Ent
. In the season two premier of The Cleveland Show
, Harder, Better, Faster, Browner, Kenny West (voiced by Kanye West
) works at a rap-themed restaurant which features a mechanical Vanilla Ice as an attraction. In the last episode of season 4 of The Big Bang Theory
, Raj sings "Ice Ice Baby". He was parodied on Saturday Night Live
portrayed by Kevin Bacon
where Chris Rock
as Nathan X wonders how a white man dances so well. Jim Carrey
parodied Vanilla Ice in one of his most known sketches on In Living Color
, where Carrey dances and raps to White White, Maybe (a parody of "Ice Ice Baby") during the Extremely White Tour (parodying the To The Extreme Tour). Carrey dances again to "Ice Ice Baby" in the 2011 movie Mr. Popper's Penguins
.
Eminem
has often name-dropped Vanilla Ice in his songs. Starting during taped freestyles he did with rapper Proof
in 1992 where they performed against each other portraying Ice and MC Hammer, respectively. In his first single "Just Don't Give a Fuck
", Eminem mentions Ice alongside Everlast
, boasting in a playful manner that he's a better rapper. In "Role Model", Eminem says he ripped out Vanilla Ice's dreadlocks. Van Winkle responded to in a magazine interview with Vibe saying that Eminem "raps like a girl". While Vanilla Ice and Eminem neither look at their responses as an actual beef, Eminem did reply to the quote in his song "Marshall Mathers" which also featured a verbal attack on the Insane Clown Posse. Eminem mentioned Ice again in the song "Purple Pills
" in 2001, which caused Vanilla Ice's only response in song. On his album Bi-Polar, Ice mentions Eminem in a positive light ("Hip Hop Rules") and in a negative light ("Exhale"), however, Van Winkle stated that he has no bad feelings towards Eminem. In a 2002 interview, Vanilla Ice stated that he thought Eminem's references were flattering, going on to say "I give him credit, I think he’s talented, I think he’s a killer rapper, you know I don’t compare myself to him because he’s another white rapper, I don't compare myself to any other rapper period, I don’t colorize hip hop, it’s stupid, but for people who are doing that are just looking through the eyes of a racial standpoint, and it really shouldn’t be looked at that way, you’re looking at two musicians that are in a broad brand of hip hop, so you don’t need to compare us two. Following me, any white rapper is going to have to hear 'oh, you think you’re Vanilla Ice?', so I am sure he’s heard that."
In 2002, Eminem mentions Ice again on The Eminem Show
and in the film 8 Mile
. Vanilla Ice responded at the 2004 Gathering of the Juggalos, concluding his show by chanting “Fuck Eminem / Juggalo Love” alongside the audience while his DJ played him out. In the 2011 song Fast Lane
, Eminem raps about riding in his car while listening to Ice Ice Baby. In Ice’s 2011 song “Bought & Sold”, Ice goes through his career and name drops Eminem in the first verse.
In 2007, Nike released Vanilla Ice shoes for their Fallen Heroes pack. In March 2009, Van Winkle participated in a Virgin Mobile
advertising campaign titled "Right Music Wrongs", apologizing for his 1990s image. As part of the campaign, Van Winkle was placed on "trial", and was voted innocent by users of the campaign website. He also appeared in a commercial for the South African light beer Castle Lite. In 2010, Vanilla Ice was featured on the debut single of the Irish duo John & Edward, a mashup
of "Under Pressure
" and "Ice Ice Baby
". "Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby)
" was released in the United Kingdom on January 31, 2010 via download and as a physical single on February 15, 2010. In 2010, Serbian
musicians Slađa Delibašić and Shwarz released the single and music video Dizel Power. The music video and song feature various references to Vanilla Ice, including the performers dancing next to a graffiti
mural
of Ice.
Former
Grammy Awards
People's Choice Awards
The Factual Entertainment Awards
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
Vanilla Ice, is an American rapper
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
, extreme athlete
Extreme sport
An extreme sport is a popular term for certain activities perceived as having a high level of inherent danger...
and home improvement television personality. Born in South Dallas
South Dallas
South Dallas is an area in Dallas, Texas, . It is usually either defined in one of two ways: As the area south of the Trinity River and south of Interstate 30, which consist mostly of Oak Cliff and Pleasant Grove, or to the area bounded by I-30 and Downtown Dallas to the north, the Trinity River to...
, and raised in Texas and South Florida, Van Winkle released his debut album, Hooked, in 1989 through Ichiban Records
Ichiban Records
Ichiban Records was a hip hop record label founded in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1985. Wrap Records and Nastymix Records were some of its subsidiary labels. Urgent! Records was distributed by Ichiban. Most of its discography is now out of print. Besides hip hop groups, Ichiban also released albums by...
, before signing a contract with SBK Records
SBK Records
SBK Records was a record label of the EMI Group that was founded in 1988.Stephen Swid, Martin Bandier, and Charles Koppelman formed the production company SBK in 1989 after they purchased the music publishing division of CBS Records in 1986....
, a record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
of the EMI Group which released a reformatted version of the album under the title To the Extreme
To the Extreme
To the Extreme is the major label debut studio album of American rapper Robert "Vanilla Ice" Van Winkle. Released in 1990, it is Van Winkle's best selling album. The album was initially released in 1989 by independent record label Ichiban Records under the title Hooked. Van Winkle signed to SBK...
. Van Winkle's single "Ice Ice Baby
Ice Ice Baby
"Ice Ice Baby" is a hip hop song written by American rapper Vanilla Ice and DJ Earthquake. The song samples the bassline of "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie, who did not initially receive songwriting credit or royalties until after it had become a hit...
" was the first hip hop single to top the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
charts
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
.
Although Van Winkle was successful, he later regretted his business arrangements with SBK, which had paid him to adopt a more commercial appearance to appeal to a mass audience and published fabricated biographical information without his knowledge. After surviving a suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
attempt, Van Winkle was inspired to change his musical style and lifestyle. While later albums by Van Winkle haven't charted or featured much radio airplay because of their less mainstream, rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
-oriented sound, Vanilla Ice has had a loyal underground following. In 2009, Van Winkle began hosting The Vanilla Ice Project
The Vanilla Ice Project
The Vanilla Ice Project is a reality TV show about renovating houses on the DIY Network. It is hosted by rapper and handyman Vanilla Ice who has experience with home improvement and flipping since the 1990s; buying houses in his early twenties and getting more into home improvement starting in 1998...
on DIY Network
DIY Network
DIY Network is a channel owned by Scripps Networks Interactive that focuses on do it yourself projects at home.Television stations air local versions with local hosts with segments produced by the network. Branded DIY Network programming is also broadcast in Japan and the Philippines...
. His latest album WTF – Wisdom, Tenacity & Focus
WTF (album)
WTF is the sixth studio album by American rapper Vanilla Ice. Originally scheduled for a 2009 release, it was officially released as a digital download on August 30, 2011 through Radium Records....
was released in August 2011. Van Winkle is currently signed to Psychopathic Records
Psychopathic Records
Psychopathic Records, also known as "The Hatchet", is an American independent record label based in Farmington Hills, Michigan that specializes in hip hop music. The label was founded in 1991 by Alex Abbiss and hip hop group Insane Clown Posse....
.
Early life
Robert Matthew Van Winkle was born in Dallas, TexasDallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
. Van Winkle never knew his real father, and was given the family name of the man his mother was married to at the time of his birth. When Van Winkle was four, his mother divorced him and he grew up moving between Dallas and Miami. Van Winkle's new stepfather in Miami worked at a car dealership. Hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
had an impact on Van Winkle at an early age, saying "It's a very big passion of mine because I love poetry. I was just heavily influenced by that whole movement and it's molded me into who I am today." Between the ages of 13 and 14, Van Winkle practiced breakdancing, which led to his friends nicknaming him "Vanilla", as he was the only one in the group that wasn't African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
. Although he disliked the nickname, it stuck. Shortly afterward, Van Winkle started battle rapping
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
at parties and because of his rhymes, his friends started calling him "MC Vanilla", however when he became a member of a breakdance troupe, Van Winkle's stage name was "Vanilla Ice" combining his nickname "Vanilla" with one of his breakdance moves, the "Ice". When Van Winkle's stepfather was offered a better job in Carrollton, Texas
Carrollton, Texas
-Climate:*On average, the warmest month is July.*The highest recorded temperature was 112°F in 1980.*The average coolest month is January.*The lowest recorded temperature was 1°F in 1989.*The most precipitation on average occurs in May....
, he moved back to Texas with his mother. He attended R. L. Turner High School
R. L. Turner High School
R. L. Turner High School is a secondary school located in Carrollton, Texas, United States in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District.In 2010, the school was rated "recognized" by the Texas Education Agency.-History:...
for a short time before dropping out. When Van Winkle was not learning to ride motorbikes, he was dancing as a street performer with his breakdancing group, now called The Vanilla Ice Posse. Van Winkle wrote "Ice Ice Baby
Ice Ice Baby
"Ice Ice Baby" is a hip hop song written by American rapper Vanilla Ice and DJ Earthquake. The song samples the bassline of "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie, who did not initially receive songwriting credit or royalties until after it had become a hit...
" at the age of 16, basing its lyrics on a weekend he had with friend and disc jockey D-Shay in South Florida. The lyrics describe a drive-by shooting
Drive-by shooting
A drive-by shooting is a form of hit-and-run tactic, a personal attack carried out by an individual or individuals from a moving or momentarily stopped vehicle without use of headlights to avoid being noticed. It often results in bystanders being shot instead of, or as well as, the intended target...
and praise Van Winkle's rhyming skills.
Early career (1985–1989)
In 1985, Van Winkle was focusing all of his energy on motocross, winning three straight titles at the Grand National Championships in Dallas. After breaking his ankle during a race, Van Winkle was not interested in racing professionally for some time, using his spare time to perfect his dance moves and creating his own while his ankle was healing. Van Winkle used his beatboxing and breakdancing skills as a street performer with his friends at local malls. One evening he visited City Lights, a South Dallas night club, where he was dared to go on stage by his friend Squirrel during an Open Mic. He won the crowd over and was asked by City Lights manager John Bush if he wanted to perform regularly which he accepted. Ice would be joined on stage with his disc jockey D-Shay and Zero as well as Earthquake, the local disc jockey at City Lights. The Vanilla Ice Posse or The V.I.P. would also perform with Ice on stage. As a performer for City Lights, Ice opened up for N.W.A, Public EnemyPublic Enemy
Public Enemy is an American hip hop group consisting of Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Professor Griff and his S1W group, DJ Lord , and Music Director Khari Wynn...
, The D.O.C.
The D.O.C.
Tracy Lynn Curry , primarily known by his stage name The D.O.C., is an American rapper from Dallas, Texas. In addition to a solo career, he was a member of the hip hop group Fila Fresh Crew, and a creative force behind the gangsta rap group N.W.A, where he co-wrote many of their releases. He has...
, Tone Lōc
Tone Lōc
Anthony Terrell Smith , better known by his stage name Tone Lōc, is an American rapper and actor.-Early life and career:...
, 2 Live Crew
2 Live Crew
2 Live Crew was a hip hop group from Miami, Florida. They caused considerable controversy with the sexual themes in their work, particularly on their 1989 album As Nasty As They Wanna Be.- Early career :...
, Paula Abdul
Paula Abdul
Paula Julie Abdul is an American singer-songwriter, dancer, choreographer, actress and television personality.In the 1980s, Abdul rose from cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers to highly sought-after choreographer at the height of the music video era before scoring a string of pop music-R&B hits...
, Sinbad
Sinbad (entertainer)
David Adkins better known by his professional name of Sinbad, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He became well known in the 1990s from being featured on his own HBO specials, appearing on several television series, and starring in the films Necessary Roughness, Houseguest, First Kid,...
and MC Hammer.
In January 1987, Van Winkle was stabbed five times during a scuffle outside of City Lights, after spending ten days at the hospital, Ice signed a contract with the the owner of City Lights, Tommy Quon and his management company, Ultrax. Quon saw commercial potential in Van Winkle's rapping and dancing skills. Buying studio time with Quon's earnings from City Lights and money Van Winkle had earned selling MDMA, they recorded songs that had been perfected on stage by Ice and his acquaintances with various producers, including Khayree
Khayree
Khayree is a music producer, from Vallejo, California. He is best known for producing for Bay Area rappers such as Mac Dre, Mac Mall, Ray Luv, and Young Lay. He produced most of Young Lay's album Black 'N Dangerous and Mac Mall's Illegal Business?, as well as many others...
. The two year production was distributed by an independent record company called Ichiban Records
Ichiban Records
Ichiban Records was a hip hop record label founded in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1985. Wrap Records and Nastymix Records were some of its subsidiary labels. Urgent! Records was distributed by Ichiban. Most of its discography is now out of print. Besides hip hop groups, Ichiban also released albums by...
in 1989. Van Winkle's debut album Hooked sold 48,000 copies in the south." Play That Funky Music
Play That Funky Music
"Play That Funky Music" is a funk song written by Robert Parissi and recorded by the band Wild Cherry. The performers on the classic recording included the members of the band at the time: lead singer Parissi, guitarist Bryan Bassett, bassist Allen Wentz, and drummer Ron Beitle, with session horn...
" was released as the album's first single, with "Ice Ice Baby" appearing as the B-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
. Tommy Quon personally sent out the single to various radio stations around the US, but the single was seldom played and when it was, it did not get the reaction Quon was hoping for. When disc jockey
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
Darrell Jaye in Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
played "Ice Ice Baby" instead of the single's A-side, the song gained a quick fanbase and other radio stations followed suit. Quon financed $8,000 for the production of a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
for "Ice Ice Baby", which received heavy airplay by The Box, increasing public interest in the song. Van Winkle later opened for EPMD
EPMD
EPMD is an American hip hop group from Brentwood, New York. The group's name is a concatenation of the members' name "E" and "PMD" or an acronym for "Erick and Parrish Making Dollars", referencing its members, emcees Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith...
, Ice-T
ICE-T
* Ice-T, an American rapper and actor* ICE T , a tilting model of the German InterCityExpress series of high-speed trains...
, Stetsasonic
Stetsasonic
Stetsasonic was an American hip hop group formed in 1979 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York. It is remembered as one of the first hip hop crews to use a live band, and the group's positive, uplifting lyrics made it forerunners of alternative hip hop and jazz hip...
and Sir Mix-A-Lot
Sir Mix-a-Lot
Anthony Ray , better known by his stage name Sir Mix-a-Lot, is an emcee and producer based in Seattle, Washington. The founder of the Nastymix record label, he debuted in 1988 with Swass...
on the Stop the Violence Tour.
Following the success of "Ice Ice Baby", record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
Suge Knight
Suge Knight
Marion "Suge" Knight, Jr. is the founder and CEO of Black Kapital Records and co-founder and former CEO of Death Row Records. Death Row Records rose to dominate the rap charts after Dr. Dre's breakthrough album The Chronic in 1992. After several years of chart successes for artists including...
and two bodyguards arrived at The Palm
The Palm (restaurant)
The Palm is an American fine-dining steakhouse that opened in 1926. It is located in New York City at 837 Second Avenue.Since its beginnings, management has opened additional restaurants throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and Mexico...
in West Hollywood
West Hollywood, California
West Hollywood, a city of Los Angeles County, California, was incorporated on November 29, 1984, with a population of 34,399 at the 2010 census. 41% of the city's population is made up of gay men according to a 2002 demographic analysis by Sara Kocher Consulting for the City of West Hollywood...
, where Van Winkle was eating. After shoving Van Winkle's bodyguards aside, Knight and his own bodyguards sat down in front of Van Winkle, staring at him before finally asking "How you doin'?" Similar incidents were repeated on several occasions. Eventually, Knight showed up at Van Winkle's hotel suite on the fifteenth floor of the Bel Age Hotel, accompanied by a member of the Oakland Raiders
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
. According to Van Winkle, Knight took him out on the balcony by himself, and implied that he would throw him off the balcony unless he signed the publishing rights to the song over to Knight; Knight used Van Winkle's money to help fund Death Row Records
Death Row Records
Death Row Records is a record label founded in 1991 by Marion "Suge" Knight Jr., Andre Young , Tracy Lynn Curry and Michael Harris . It is known to have been home to many popular West Coast hip hop artists such as Dr...
.
Mainstream success (1990–1992)
On the basis of Van Winkle's good looks and dance moves, Public Enemy tried to convince their producer, Hank ShockleeThe Bomb Squad
The Bomb Squad is an American hip hop production team, known for their work with the rap group Public Enemy. The Bomb Squad are noted for their dense, distinct, innovative production style, often utilizing dozens of samples on just one track...
, to sign Van Winkle to Def Jam
Def Jam Recordings
Def Jam Recordings is an American record label, focused primarily on hip hop and urban music, owned by Universal Music Group, and operates as a part of The Island Def Jam Motown Music Group...
, but Van Winkle later signed a contract with SBK Records
SBK Records
SBK Records was a record label of the EMI Group that was founded in 1988.Stephen Swid, Martin Bandier, and Charles Koppelman formed the production company SBK in 1989 after they purchased the music publishing division of CBS Records in 1986....
in 1990. SBK remixed and re-recorded Hooked under the title To the Extreme
To the Extreme
To the Extreme is the major label debut studio album of American rapper Robert "Vanilla Ice" Van Winkle. Released in 1990, it is Van Winkle's best selling album. The album was initially released in 1989 by independent record label Ichiban Records under the title Hooked. Van Winkle signed to SBK...
. The reissue contained new artwork and music. According to Van Winkle, SBK paid him to adopt a more commercial, conventional appearance. This led Van Winkle to later regret his business agreements with SBK.
SBK Record executive Monte Lipman
Monte Lipman
Monte Lipman is an American music industry executive. He is presently the President and CEO of Universal Republic Records.In the current era of record company transition, Lipman transformed his own start-up label, Republic Records, into an autonomous imprint in 2005 – Universal Republic Records,...
stated that he received calls from radio stations reporting over 200 phone calls requesting Ice Ice Baby. SBK wanted Ice on the road as soon as possible. MC Hammer
MC Hammer
Stanley Kirk Burrell , better known by his stage name MC Hammer , is an American rapper, entertainer, business entrepreneur, dancer and actor. He had his greatest commercial success and popularity from the late 1980s until the mid-1990s...
, an old acquaintance from his club days, had Ice on as an opening act on his tour.
To the Extreme became the fastest selling hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
album of all time, peaking at #1 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
. The album spent 16 weeks on the charts
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
, and sold eleven million copies. Reviews of To the Extreme were mixed. Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
reviewer Mim Udovitch gave the album a B, citing "Ice Ice Baby", "Play That Funky Music", "Dancin'" and "It's a Party" as the album's highlights. Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
gave the album a C− rating, writing that Van Winkle's "suave sexism, fashionably male supremacist rather than dangerously obscene, is no worse than his suave beats". Criticizing the technique and style of Vanilla Ice, Allrovi reviewer Steve Huey wrote:
In late 1990, Van Winkle began an eight-month relationship with Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
, and appeared in photographs for her book, Sex
Sex (book)
Sex is a coffee table book written by Madonna with photographs by Steven Meisel Studio and film frames taken from film shot by Fabien Baron. The book was edited by Glenn O'Brien. Sex was released on October 21, 1992 by Warner Books...
. In the height of Van Winkle's popularity, SBK licensed a 12" doll which was made by THQ. In January 1991, he was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
. Van Winkle branched out into the film industry with an appearance in the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze is a 1991 American live-action film, It is the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, being the direct sequel to the 1990 film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Secret of the Ooze was then followed by a third film in 1993, and a fourth...
, which he later called "one of the coolest experiences" of his career. Van Winkle was very secretive about his personal life, with the intention of protecting his family. When a Dallas Morning News reporter asked Van Winkle what his mother’s profession was, he replied "None of your fucking business". In an attempt to rectify this, his former label wrote a fake biography in his name and tried to pass it off as his official life story without his knowledge. While on tour in 1991, Van Winkle found out that SBK had instigated the publication of the biography which detailed false biographical information, including claims that he had attended school with Luther Campbell
Luther Campbell
Luther R. Campbell , also known as Luke Skyywalker, Uncle Luke or Luke, is a record label owner, rap performer , and actor...
and over exaggerating his living conditions in Miami, which Ice later had to debunk by himself.
Van Winkle's second major release was the live album
Live album
A live album is a recording consisting of material recorded during stage performances using remote recording techniques, commonly contrasted with a studio album...
Extremely Live
Extremely Live
-Charts:...
, released in March 1991. The album was a live recording during Vanilla Ice's performance in Miami during his To The Extreme tour. Premiering new songs like Rollin' in My 5.0
Rollin' in My 5.0
"Rollin' in my 5.0" is a hip hop song written by American rapper Vanilla Ice. The song samples Fly Like an Eagle by The Steve Miller Band, but unlike other artist sampled by Vanilla Ice, Steve Miller was honored by the sample and between 2009-2010, Vanilla Ice would sometimes join the Steve Miller...
, Road To My Riches and Satisfaction, the album peaked at #30 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
, but it received mainly negative reviews, with Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
reviewer David Browne
David Browne
David Browne is an American journalist and author. He was the resident music critic at Entertainment Weekly between 1990 and 2006. He was an editor at Music & Sound Output magazine and a music critic at the New York Daily News before EW...
calling it "one of the most ridiculous albums ever released", comparing it to The Best of Marcel Marceau
Marcel Marceau
Marcel Marceau was an internationally acclaimed French actor and mime most famous for his persona as Bip the Clown.-Early years:...
, an album which consisted of two sides of silence opened by brief applause. According to Browne, Extremely Live "affords you the chance to hear inane stage patter [...] and unaccompanied drumming, during which, one assumes, Ice and his posse are onstage dancing." Monte Lipman later stated that SBK only released the live disc to make more money from Ice's fame. In April 1991, Van Winkle began to film the SBK produced Cool as Ice
Cool as Ice
Cool as Ice is a 1991 American musical romance film directed by David Kellogg and starring rapper Vanilla Ice in his feature film debut. The film focuses on the character of Johnny, a freewheeling, motorcycle-riding rapper who arrives in a small town and meets Kathy, an honor student who catches...
, in which he played a leading role.
Cool as Ice opened on October 18, 1991 in 393 theaters in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, grossing $638,000, ranking at #14 among the week's new releases. Reviews of the film were negative. Film website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a score of 8%. Van Winkle received a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst New Star. SBK stated that they overexposed Ice and Van Winkle decided to stop taking their business advices as well as distancing himself from the image that SBK was trying to create for him. In late 1991, Ice appeared in the Circus of the Stars and Sideshow, driving his motorcycle through a wall of fire. While his fame in the United States had severely dropped, Ice continued performing to sold out crowds in his 1992 world tour, playing in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, premiering new songs like "Get Loose", "The Wrath", "Now & Forever", "Where the Dogs At? (All Night Long)", "Minutes of Power" and "Iceman Path". After a performance in Acapulco
Acapulco
Acapulco is a city, municipality and major sea port in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific coast of Mexico, southwest from Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semi-circular bay and has been a port since the early colonial period of Mexico’s history...
, the city honored Van Winkle with a medal that represented "all the respect and admiration to [Van Winkle's] music and to [him] as an artist from the Mexican people". Van Winkle also served as a spokesperson for Nike
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
and Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
throughout 1991 and 1992.
Fall from fame (1993–1996)
After almost nothing but non-stop touring for the past three years, Van Winkle took a small break from music in 1993 and started competing in Jet skiing under his real name. In 1993, most members of the Vanilla Ice Posse had gone their separate ways, including Ice's disc jockey Earthquake and D-Shay. Ice's hype man and second disc jockey Zero, became Ice's DJ full time. In late 1991, Ice had started production on his second album, Mind Blowin, but continuous touring in 1991-1992 delayed the album severely. Van Winkle was interested in responding to his critics by having his next album surpass his earlier and popular work. In 1992, Ice started writing response songs aimed at 3rd Bass3rd Bass
3rd Bass was an American hip-hop group that rose to fame in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and was notable for being one of the first successful interracial hip-hop groups.-Career:...
and Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch
Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch
Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch was a hip-hop group led by Mark Wahlberg. The Funky Bunch consisted of Wahlberg , Scott Ross , Hector Barros , Terry Yancey and Anthony Thomas...
. Together with Zero, the new album started production yet again, scrapping a lot of finished songs and re-doing others. Zero would help create new beats to songs that Van Winkle had already performed live such as "The Wrath", while other songs like "Iceman Path" and "Get Loose" were left unchanged. In 1993, Ice toured Eastern-Europe again and premiered songs off his upcoming album in St. Petersburg, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
in front of President Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...
. During months of non-stop touring, Van Winkle and the remaining back-up dancers smoked cannabis
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...
regularly after a show.
By 1994, Van Winkle received less publicity and became removed from the public spotlight. After becoming more interested with the Rastafari movement
Rastafari movement
The Rastafari movement or Rasta is a new religious movement that arose in the 1930s in Jamaica, which at the time was a country with a predominantly Christian culture where 98% of the people were the black descendants of slaves. Its adherents worship Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia , as God...
, Van Winkle became a vegetarian, grew dreadlocks
Dreadlocks
Dreadlocks, also called locks, a ras, dreads, "rasta" or Jata , are matted coils of hair. Dreadlocks are usually intentionally formed; because of the variety of different hair textures, various methods are used to encourage the formation of locks such as backcombing...
and talked more openly about smoking cannabis. On March 22, 1994, Van Winkle released his second studio album, Mind Blowin. Reviews were unfavorable. Entertainment Weekly reviewer James Bernard called the album "more clunky than funky". Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
reviewer Danyel Smith praised the song "Get Loose" as "snappy", writing that although the lyrics are "inane", "the song is a thumping party, one of the few places where Ice loosens up. He sounds solid at the beginning of 'The Wrath' as well [...] In 'Now and Forever,' a wet dream kind of song, Ice goes back to goofy lyrics." Allrovi reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...
wrote that "There isn't a single moment that establishes a distinct musical identity, and the whole thing is rather embarrassing." Primus
Primus (band)
Primus is an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, currently composed of bassist/vocalist Les Claypool, guitarist Larry "Ler" LaLonde and drummer Jay Lane. Primus originally formed in 1984 with Claypool and guitarist Todd Huth, later joined by Lane, though the latter two departed...
bassist Les Claypool
Les Claypool
Leslie Edward "Les" Claypool is an American musician and writer, best known as the lead vocalist and bassist in the band Primus. Claypool's playing style on the electric bass mixes tapping, flamenco-like strumming, whammy bar bends and slapping.Claypool has also self produced and engineered his...
stated in response to Van Winkle's cannabis-oriented lyrics: "That's all fine and dandy and cute, but it could be misconstrued and manipulated by the wrong people." When asked about the drug oriented sound years later, Vanilla Ice said "A lot of the record is drug oriented because I was doing a lot of drugs at the time". Shortly afterward, SBK went bankrupt
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
.
At around this time, Van Winkle began using ecstasy, cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
and heroin. During periods of heavy drug use, Van Winkle received many tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
s from artist
Tattoo artist
A tattoo artist is an individual who applies permanent decorative tattoos, often in an established business called a tattoo shop, tattoo studio or tattoo parlour...
acquaintances. According to Van Winkle, he "was in [his] binge days. [He] didn't even realize how many [he] was getting". Van Winkle attempted suicide with a heroin overdose
Drug overdose
The term drug overdose describes the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities greater than are recommended or generally practiced...
on July 4, 1994 but was revived by his friends. After being revived, Van Winkle decided that it was time to change his lifestyle. As a symbol of his attempt to begin anew, he got a tattoo of a leaf on his stomach. After expanding his Mind Blowin’ tour overseas in 1995, Van Winkle sold his estate in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and took a break from music, rather focusing on motocross
Motocross
Motocross is a form of motorcycle sport or all-terrain vehicle racing held on enclosed off road circuits. It evolved from trials, and was called scrambles, and later motocross, combining the French moto with cross-country...
ing and jet skiing in Florida. By the summer Van Winkle was the world's No. 6-ranked sit-down Jet Ski racer, competing nearly every weekend and earning a Kawasaki
Kawasaki Heavy Industries
is an international corporation based in Japan. It has headquarters in both Chūō-ku, Kobe and Minato, Tokyo.The company is named after its founder Shōzō Kawasaki and has no connection with the city of Kawasaki, Kanagawa....
sponsorship. He met future wife Laura Giaritta a year after his suicide attempt at a Fourth of July party in 1995.
Uncertain about his future career, Van Winkle studied real estate and started working on the side renovating and selling houses. In late 1995, Van Winkle set up a recording studio in Miami and joined a grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
band, Pickin Scabz. The name was set to reflect Van Winkle's career and how he was healing from his suicide attempt and that he was now "picking up the pieces". Van Winkle expressed an interest in performing hip hop-influenced rock music, but found that the band was unable to produce the sound he was looking for. In 1996, long time associate and friend Monte Lipman signed Van Winkle as an artist for Universal Republic Records. He did guest vocals with no stage name for the song "Boom" by Bloodhound Gang
Bloodhound Gang
Bloodhound Gang is a Collegeville, Pennsylvania-based American comedy band, although it began as a rap group and gradually changed its genre throughout the years...
on their CD One Fierce Beer Coaster
One Fierce Beer Coaster
One Fierce Beer Coaster is the second studio album by American alternative rock band Bloodhound Gang, released on December 3, 1996. Produced by Jimmy Pop, it was the band's first release on Geffen Records, and the first to feature Michael "Spanky G" Guthier on drums, "Evil" Jared Hasselhoff on...
. Later that year, Van Winkle opened up a Miami-based Extreme sport
Extreme sport
An extreme sport is a popular term for certain activities perceived as having a high level of inherent danger...
store that focused mostly on water sports and surfing, which he and girlfriend Laura named after his first mainstream album, '2 The Xtreme'. On March 30, 1997, Van Winkle married Laura. His relationship and different professions helped anchor Van Winkle, who thought about leaving music behind just as he did hard drugs.
Return to the spotlight (1997–2001)
Van Winkle later developed a friendship with producer Ross RobinsonRoss Robinson
Ross Robinson, son of Byron Katie, is an American multi-platinum music producer, who has discovered successful acts such as Korn, At the Drive-In, Glassjaw, Repeater, Slipknot and Limp Bizkit. Robinson has also worked with Machine Head, Vanilla Ice, The Cure, Sepultura and many others...
, who had become known for producing music by Deftones
Deftones
Deftones are an American alternative metal band from Sacramento, California, founded in 1988. The band consists of Chino Moreno , Stephen Carpenter , Chi Cheng , Frank Delgado , and Abe Cunningham . Currently Sergio Vega is standing in on bass while Cheng recovers from a car accident...
, Korn
Korn
Korn is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, formed in 1993. The current band line up includes four members: Jonathan Davis, James "Munky" Shaffer, Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, and Ray Luzier. The band was formed as an expansion of L.A.P.D.The band released their first demo album,...
, Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit is an American rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Formed in 1995, the group's lineup consists of Fred Durst , Wes Borland , Sam Rivers , John Otto and DJ Lethal . The band achieved mainstream success with their second studio album Significant Other, released in 1999...
and Sepultura
Sepultura
Sepultura is a Brazilian heavy metal band from Belo Horizonte, formed in 1984. The band was a major force in the death metal, thrash metal and ultimately groove metal realms during the late 1980s and early 1990s, with their later experiments melding nu metal, hardcore punk and industrial.Sepultura...
. Robinson and Van Winkle shared an interest in motocross
Motocross
Motocross is a form of motorcycle sport or all-terrain vehicle racing held on enclosed off road circuits. It evolved from trials, and was called scrambles, and later motocross, combining the French moto with cross-country...
racing. Monte Lipman hoped that Robinson would produce a new Vanilla Ice album. According to Robinson, others had attempted to discourage him from working with Van Winkle, saying it might hurt his reputation. Rather than being dissuaded, their fear encouraged Robinson who agreed to work with Van Winkle. In an interview, Robinson stated "It's the most punk-rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
thing you could do."
Van Winkle started talking very openly about his early business ventures in interviews while the album was being recorded. Appearing in interviews and TV documentaries about his former image, selling out and his run-ins with Suge Knight. Despite not being happy with his old image, Winkle stated that he never had a problem with his older music. Van Winkle decided against changing his stage name to something else, as he felt no need to run from his past, despite being uneasy with some of it and started performing again, booking a hundred shows a year.
Van Winkle's third studio album, Hard to Swallow
Hard to Swallow
Hard to Swallow is the third studio album by American rapper Robert Van Winkle under the name Vanilla Ice. Released by Republic Records in 1998, the album was the first album the performer recorded after a four year hiatus following the 1994 release of Mind Blowin...
, featured a darker sound and lyrics than Van Winkle's previous work as well as various mixtures of different styles of hip hop and hard rock which caught the media's attention. Van Winkle attracted a whole new audience when he started touring again, some who were even unfamiliar with his more mainstream sound. Despite getting its own audience and going Gold, reviews of the album were generally negative. Jon Pareles of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote "The most earnest new song, Scars, condemns an abusive father. The sentiments would sound more genuine if Korn hadn't gotten there first." Richard Torres of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
gave the album two out of five stars, writing that while "nothing, however, can redeem Ice's wack boasting," the album "isn't half-bad." In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide
Rolling Stone Album Guide
The Rolling Stone Album Guide, previously known as The Rolling Stone Record Guide, is a book that, along with its sister publication Rolling Stone magazine, contains professional reviews of popular music...
, Rob Kemp gave the album three out of five stars, writing that it contained Van Winkle's "most convincing music". A lot of executives at SonyBMG were predicting that the album would do better than 'To The Extreme'. In promotion of Hard to Swallow, Van Winkle toured with a seven-piece live band which included bassist Scott Shriner
Scott Shriner
Scott G. Shriner is the bass guitarist for the alternative rock band Weezer.-Early life:Shriner was born in Toledo, Ohio. He took up bass in high school. After being discharged from the Marine Corps, he found his high school bass teacher Mark Kieswetter, with whom he studied until moving to Los...
. The band opened with rock-oriented material from Hard to Swallow and concluded with older hip hop songs. The setlist also included "Power", based upon Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
's "Immigrant Song
Immigrant Song
"Immigrant Song" is a song by the English rock band Led Zeppelin. It was released as a single from their third album, Led Zeppelin III, in 1970.-Overview:...
". Van Winkle said that writing the songs and performing them were like therapy, as he had tried to hide his anger when making his older songs but Robinson was the first producer who told him to use it to create.
In 1999, the music video for "Ice Ice Baby" was "retired" on the MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
special 25 Lame, in which Van Winkle himself was asked to destroy the video's master tape. When Van Winkle was given a baseball bat, he ended up destroying not only the film but the show's entire set as well. In 2001, DJ ReAnimator remixed "Ice Ice Baby" with Vanilla Ice re-doing his vocals for the track. Ice Ice Baby 2001 was released as a single and music video for the European market spawning a wave of new overseas interest in Vanilla Ice.
Having attracted a following outside of his former mainstream audience, Van Winkle began recording independently, despite still being signed at Universal. During a recording session, Ice met the all-female American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
hard rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
band
Musical ensemble
A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...
from Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, Betty Blowtorch
Betty Blowtorch
Betty Blowtorch was an all-female American hard rock band from Southern California.-Biography:The band was formed in 1998 by three members of Butt Trumpet. After releasing the 2001 album, Are You Man Enough?, the group toured with Nashville Pussy. During the tour, drummer Judy Molish and guitarist...
. The late Bianca Halstead
Bianca Halstead
Bianca Halstead or Bianca Butthole was an American rock musician; she was the bassist and lead singer of Betty Blowtorch. She was killed by a drunk driver on December 15, 2001 in New Orleans. She is interred in Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood, CA...
bonded with Van Winkle and asked if he wanted to contribute a rap interlude to the their track Size Queen. On Van Winkle's collaboration with the band, lead vocalist and bassist Halstead was quoted saying "I asked him if he could rap over [the track] and he said he can rap over anything. And he could!" Per his stepfather's request, Van Winkle started working with his former manager Tommy Quon again, while hoping to re-create some of the magic that they worked hard on in the early 90's, Van Winkle denied any interest in trying to become big again and that his only passion was music, not fame.
In May 2000, Van Winkle wrestled in a match promoted by Juggalo Championship Wrestling, then known as Juggalo Championshit Wrestling, filling in for Insane Clown Posse
Insane Clown Posse
Insane Clown Posse is an American hip hop duo from Detroit, Michigan. The group is composed of Joseph Bruce and Joseph Utsler, who perform under the respective personas of the "wicked clowns" Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope. Insane Clown Posse performs a style of hardcore hip hop known as horrorcore...
member Joseph Utsler
Joseph Utsler
Joseph William "Joey" Utsler is an American rapper, record producer, DJ, professional wrestler and actor. Utsler is known as Shaggy 2 Dope of the hip hop group Insane Clown Posse. He is the co-founder of the record label Psychopathic Records, with fellow Insane Clown Posse rapper Joseph Bruce and...
, who had been injured during a match. MTV News
MTV News
MTV News is the news division of MTV, one of the first and most popular music television network in the U.S., as well as some of MTV's related channels around the world. MTV News began in the late 1980s with the program The Week In Rock, hosted by Kurt Loder, the first official MTV News correspondent...
reported that Insane Clown Posse would make an appearance on Van Winkle's next album, tentatively titled Bomb Tha System. In October 2000, Van Winkle announced that his next album would be titled Skabz, and that Chuck D
Chuck D
Carlton Douglas Ridenhour , better known by his stage name, Chuck D, is an American rapper, author, and producer. He helped create politically and socially conscious rap music in the mid-1980s as the leader of the rap group Public Enemy.- Early life :Ridenhour was born in Queens, New York...
was confirmed to appear on the album. It was initially planned as a double album
Double album
A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....
featuring a disc containing rock-oriented material and a disc of hip hop songs. In July 2001, Van Winkle performed at the second Gathering of the Juggalo
Juggalo
Juggalo or Juggalette is a name given to fans of Insane Clown Posse or any other Psychopathic Records hip hop group. Juggalos have developed their own idioms, slang, and characteristics.-History:...
s. On October 23, 2001, Skabz and Bomb Tha System were released as a together as Bi-Polar. The album also featured La the Darkman
La the Darkman
As a teenager in New York City, the Crown Heights, Brooklyn-bred emcee born Lason Jackson negotiated his first deal just as he was finishing high school...
, Perla, Insane Poetry
Insane Poetry
Insane Poetry is an American hip hop group from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1988, Insane Poetry is considered to be one of the first horrorcore groups.-History:...
and Bob Kakaha
Bob Kakaha
Robert 'Bob' Kakaha, also known as Bobzilla is an American bassist best known as the bassist for heavy metal band Damageplan and is currently a member of heavy metal supergroup Hellyeah.-Life and career:...
. Bradley Torreano of Allrovi disliked the album, criticizing it as "wildly uneven and at times hilariously bad", but also stating "Vanilla Ice is still better than a lot of the rap-metal bands that erupted in 2000/2001." and the rap beats on Bomb Tha System "are surprisingly solid". In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, Rob Kemp gave the album one out of five stars, calling the album "utterly listless". According to a Sony BMG executive, sales of Bi-Polar were "not bad...for Vanilla Ice. That's pretty respectable. Seriously."
Independent releases (2002–2009)
Todd Bridges
Todd Anthony Bridges is an American actor. He is best known for his childhood role as Willis Jackson on the NBC/ABC sitcom Diff'rent Strokes, and for his recurring role as Monk on the UPN/CW sitcom Everybody Hates Chris...
under the name 'Bi-Polar'. In 2003, he appeared in five episodes of Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares is an American panel game show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. The "board" for the game is a 3 × 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk and facing the contestants...
, eight episodes on 'The Farm' and three episodes of Celebrity Bull Riding Challenge as well as a cameo in The New Guy
The New Guy
The New Guy is a 2002 American teen comedy directed by Ed Decter. The film tells the story of high school loser Dizzy Gillespie Harrison. Dizzy is an unpopular, high school band geek going through a hellish senior year...
in 2002.
Van Winkle continued motocrossing and auditioned for the 2002 X Games in the freestyle division and was placed seventh at the 2003 Suzuki Crossover challenge. In 2003, Van Winkle contributed vocals to "Off the Chain" by 7x70, a side project of Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band from Leyton in east London, formed in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. Since their inception, the band's discography has grown to include a total of thirty-six albums: fifteen studio albums; eleven live albums; four EPs; and six...
drummer Nicko McBrain
Nicko McBrain
Michael Henry "Nicko" McBrain is an English musician, best known as the drummer for Iron Maiden, which he joined in 1982, prior to which he had played for Streetwalkers, Pat Travers, and the French political band, Trust.-Biography:...
and Anthrax
Anthrax (band)
Anthrax is an American heavy metal band from New York City, formed in 1981. Founded by guitarists Scott Ian and Danny Lilker, the band has since released ten studio albums and 20 singles, and an EP featuring Public Enemy. The band was one of the most popular of the 1980s thrash metal scene...
guitarist Dan Spitz
Dan Spitz
Dan Spitz is a musician best known for his work as the lead guitarist of the heavy metal band Anthrax from 1983–1995 and from 2005 to 2007. He is the brother of former White Lion and Black Sabbath bassist Dave Spitz.-Personal life:...
. A demo
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
of the song was leaked
Internet leak
An Internet leak occurs when a party's confidential information is released to the public on the Internet. Various types of information and data can be, and have been, "leaked" to the Internet, the most common being personal information, computer software and source code, and artistic works such...
in June. In 2003, Ultrax reissued Bomb Tha System (the second part of "Bi-Polar") under the title Hot Sex, which was a single from the original album.
From January to February 2004, Van Winkle appeared on the reality television
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
series The Surreal Life
The Surreal Life
The Surreal Life is a reality television series that sets a select group of past-their-prime celebrities and records them as they live together in Glen Campbell's former mansion in the Hollywood Hills for two weeks...
. Although much of the series was staged, Van Winkle found the experience to be therapeutic, stating that a comment made by Tammy Faye Messner during filming; "We are who we are because of who we were" helped him accept his past. After filming 'Surreal Life', Van Winkle co-starred in the drug comedy The Helix...Loaded
The Helix...Loaded
The Helix...Loaded is a parody of The Matrix and Fight Club, written and directed by A. Raven Cruz and starring Scott Levy and Vanilla Ice.-Plot:...
, an independent film parodying The Matrix
The Matrix
The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
and other movies made in the late 90's/early 00's. Van Winkle's song "Hot Sex" was featured on the soundtrack and the film featured a reference to "Ice Ice Baby".
On August 2, 2005, Van Winkle released his fifth studio album, Platinum Underground
Platinum Underground
Platinum Underground is the fifth studio album by American rapper Vanilla Ice. Released on August 16, 2005, it is the rapper's third independent release, after Hooked and Bi-Polar...
. Van Winkle stated that the title of the album reflected the fact that he could maintain a fanbase without mainstream airplay. Allrovi reviewer Rob Theakston panned the album, writing that it "has more bad spots in it than most". The album featured the song "Survivor" which had premiered on an NBC special produced in the UK entitled Hit Me Baby One More Time. Songs like Trailer Park Mullet Wars and Step Up or Shut Up were a hybrid mix of different heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
sounds, while Say Goodbye and Bounce were new school hip hop. The rest of the album featured mixes of Horrorcore
Horrorcore
Horrorcore is a subgenre of hip hop music based in horror-themed lyrical content and imagery. While the style is rarely popular, some performers have sold well in the mainstream scene.-Origins:...
, Reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
and Hardcore hip hop
Hardcore hip hop
Hardcore hip hop, also referred to as hardcore rap, is a sub-genre of hip hop music that developed through the East Coast hip hop scene in the 1980s. Pioneered by such artists as Schoolly D, Spoonie Gee, Boogie Down Productions, and Kool G Rap, it is generally characterized by anger, aggression and...
. After getting requests to do Ninja Rap live, Ice decided to make a song entitled Ninja Rap 2 (also known as Go Ninja Go) which was set to be a hardcore remix. Despite the name, the song has very little connections to Van Vinkle's original 1991 single, but rather stays true to Ice's current lyricism, where Ice talks about his appreciation to his fans, his love to perform at clubs and playing at the Gathering of the Juggalos
Gathering of the Juggalos
The Gathering of the Juggalos is an annual festival put on by Psychopathic Records, featuring performances by the entire label as well as numerous well-known musical groups and underground artists. It was founded by Robert Bruce, Insane Clown Posse , and their label in 2000...
with Insane Clown Posse
Insane Clown Posse
Insane Clown Posse is an American hip hop duo from Detroit, Michigan. The group is composed of Joseph Bruce and Joseph Utsler, who perform under the respective personas of the "wicked clowns" Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope. Insane Clown Posse performs a style of hardcore hip hop known as horrorcore...
. Ninja Rap 2 was the first song to be released from Platinum Underground and was available to download for free off of Ice's official website.
In 2007, Van Winkle returned to a spin-off to The Surreal Life entitled The Surreal Life: Fame Games
The Surreal Life: Fame Games
The Surreal Life: Fame Games is a reality television series that was originally broadcast on the VH1 cable network. A spin-off of the VH1 show, The Surreal Life, the show assembles ten alumni of the show's 6 prior seasons to compete in a ten-week competition that takes place in Las Vegas, with the...
where he again trashed the set after being voted off. In September 2008, Van Winkle signed a contract with Cleopatra Records
Cleopatra Records
Cleopatra Records is a Los Angeles-based independent record label.- History :Founded in 1992 by Brian Perera, it specializes in gothic rock, hard rock, heavy metal and reissues of out-of-print music...
, recording the cover album
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
Vanilla Ice Is Back! at the label's request. The album was released on November 4, 2008, and contained covers of songs by Public Enemy, House of Pain
House of Pain
House of Pain is an American hip hop group who released three albums in the 1990s before lead rapper Everlast left to pursue his solo career again. The group's name is a reference to the H.G. Wells novel The Island of Dr...
, Bob Marley
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers...
and Cypress Hill
Cypress Hill
Cypress Hill is an American hip hop group from South Gate, California. Cypress Hill was the first Latino hip-hop group to have platinum and multi-platinum albums, selling over 18 million albums worldwide...
. IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
reviewer Spence D. called the album "an embarrassing endeavor that sounds like it should have stayed locked inside Ice's studio (or at the very least leaked on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
and passed off as a piss take)." On February 27, 2009, Van Winkle performed as part of a joint performance with MC Hammer in Orem, Utah
Orem, Utah
Orem is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States, in the north-central part of the state. It is adjacent to Provo, Lindon, and Vineyard and is about south of Salt Lake City. Orem is one of the principal cities of the Provo-Orem, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Utah and...
called "Hammer Pants And Ice", which featured 24 dancers and a full choir.
Future endeavors (2010–present)
In August 2009, Van Winkle announced on his official TwitterTwitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
account that he had signed a contract with StandBy Records
StandBy Records
StandBy Records is a record company based in Cleveland, Ohio, founded by Nick Moore, lead singer of Before Their Eyes in 2007 . Moore sold the company to Neil Sheehan, owner of HM-Live in 2008 because he was to busy with Before Their Eyes. Sheehan introduced StandBy Urban as part of the label for...
; however, Van Winkle later left the label. Ice was a special musical guest at the 2010 National Television Awards in January, performing with Jedward
Jedward
John Paul Henry Daniel Richard Grimes and Edward Peter Anthony Kevin Patrick Grimes are an Irish hip pop duo. They are identical twins and perform under the name Jedward...
for their remix and debut single "Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby)
Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby)
"Under Pressure " is the debut single by Irish pop duo Jedward. The song is a mashup of "Under Pressure", originally recorded in 1981 by Queen and David Bowie, and "Ice Ice Baby", recorded by Vanilla Ice in 1989. Vanilla Ice also provides vocals for the track...
". Van Winkle also recorded his verse for their album Planet Jedward
Planet Jedward
Planet Jedward is the debut studio album by Irish pop duo Jedward. The album was released on July 16, 2010.-Background:The album was released via Absolute Records, a minor subsidiary of the Universal Music Group label. Despite this, the twins' debut single, "Under Pressure ", was released by Sony...
and appeared in the music video. Vanilla Ice was a part of The Back2Kool concert tour with Turbo B
Turbo B
Turbo B Turbo B Turbo B (born Durron Maurice Butler, April 30, 1967, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is an American musician, rapper and beatboxer, best known for his time fronting the electronic music group, Snap!.-Early years:...
and MC Hammer, playing worldwide in late 2010. Ice reunited with his former DJ; Floyd 'Earthquake' Brown for the shows overseas. In early 2011, Vanilla Ice appeared on the sixth season
Dancing on Ice (series 6)
The sixth series of Dancing on Ice started on 9 January 2011 and ended on 27 March 2011 on ITV. Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby return as hosts whilst Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean return to mentor the celebrities...
of the UK show Dancing on Ice
Dancing on Ice
Dancing on Ice is a British television show co-hosted by Christine Bleakley and Philip Schofield, in which celebrities and their professional partners figure skate in front of a panel of judges. The format, devised by LWT and Granada Television, has been a prime-time hit in eight different...
as well as various ice skating tours surrounding the show.
In 2009, Van Winkle started filming a reality television series called The Vanilla Ice Project
The Vanilla Ice Project
The Vanilla Ice Project is a reality TV show about renovating houses on the DIY Network. It is hosted by rapper and handyman Vanilla Ice who has experience with home improvement and flipping since the 1990s; buying houses in his early twenties and getting more into home improvement starting in 1998...
which premiered on DIY Network
DIY Network
DIY Network is a channel owned by Scripps Networks Interactive that focuses on do it yourself projects at home.Television stations air local versions with local hosts with segments produced by the network. Branded DIY Network programming is also broadcast in Japan and the Philippines...
on October 14, 2010. The season is focused on renovating a house in Palm Beach, Florida with each episode dedicated to a different room in the house. In 2011, Van Winkle published a book on the subject, Vanilla Ice Project – Real Estate Guide on how to succeed in real estate. The book was made available as a free digital download on his real estate website. The second season will air January 2012.
In June 2011, Van Winkle filmed a role in the film I Hate You, Dad
I Hate You, Dad
I Hate You, Dad is the working title for an upcoming comedy starring Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg. the original script was written by David Caspe with a later rewrite coming from David Wain and Ken Marino. Sean Anders and John Morris will serve as directors...
, portraying Antonio, Adam Sandler
Adam Sandler
Adam Richard Sandler is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, musician, and film producer.After becoming a Saturday Night Live cast member, Sandler went on to star in several Hollywood feature films that grossed over $100 million at the box office...
's best friend from high school. In August, Van Winkle performed at the 2011 Gathering of the Juggalos, where it was officially announced that he had signed with Psychopathic Records
Psychopathic Records
Psychopathic Records, also known as "The Hatchet", is an American independent record label based in Farmington Hills, Michigan that specializes in hip hop music. The label was founded in 1991 by Alex Abbiss and hip hop group Insane Clown Posse....
. His sixth studio album, WTF
WTF (album)
WTF is the sixth studio album by American rapper Vanilla Ice. Originally scheduled for a 2009 release, it was officially released as a digital download on August 30, 2011 through Radium Records....
, was released on August 19 through Radium Records. While the record featured an array of different styles, like other recent Vanilla Ice albums, it also featured Ice's return to Electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
, with songs like "Turn It Up", "Rock Star Party", "Nightmare Disco" and "Cadillac Ninjas".
In December 2011, Van Winkle will portray Captain Hook in the Chatham, Kent Central Theatre pantomime production of Peter Pan, in the role that once belonged to Henry Winkler
Henry Winkler
Henry Franklin Winkler, OBE is an American actor, director, producer, and author.Winkler is best known for his role as Fonzie on the 1970s American sitcom Happy Days...
. He also turned on the Christmas Lights for Rochester, Kent in Rochester Castle
Rochester Castle
Rochester Castle stands on the east bank of the River Medway in Rochester, Kent, England. The 12th-century keep or stone tower, which is the castle's most prominent feature, is one of the best preserved in England or France. Located along the River Medway and Watling Street, Rochester was a...
, as part of the promotion for the panto. Van Winkle will record an album for Psychopathic with production by Mike E. Clark
Mike E. Clark
Mike Earl Clark is an American record producer and DJ from Detroit, Michigan currently signed to Hatchet House.Clark is best known for his work with Insane Clown Posse, for which he has produced nine studio albums...
. Joseph Bruce
Joseph Bruce
Joseph Frank "Joe" Bruce is an American rapper, record producer, professional wrestler and actor. Bruce is most commonly known as Violent J of the Insane Clown Posse . He is the co-founder of the record label Psychopathic Records, with fellow ICP rapper Joseph Utsler and their former manager,...
stated that it will be released between the end of 2011 and early 2012.
Personal life
Van Winkle had a short relationship with Debbie Gibson after meeting her on Love ConnectionLove Connection
Love Connection is an American television game show, hosted by Chuck Woolery, in which singles attempted to connect with a compatible partner of the opposite gender. The show debuted in syndication on September 19, 1983 and ended on July 1, 1994, after more than 2,000 shows. Reruns continued to air...
. He dated Madonna for eight months in late 1990. Van Winkle married Laura Giaritta in 1997; the couple split in 2011. They have two daughters, Dusti Rain (born 1998) and KeeLee Breeze (born 2000). Van Winkle is a Juggalo
Juggalo
Juggalo or Juggalette is a name given to fans of Insane Clown Posse or any other Psychopathic Records hip hop group. Juggalos have developed their own idioms, slang, and characteristics.-History:...
and a Vegetarian
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...
.
Legal issues
On June 3, 1991, Van Winkle was arrested in Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
on firearm charges, after threatening a homeless man, James N. Gregory, with a pistol. Gregory had approached Van Winkle's car outside of a supermarket and attempted to sell him a silver chain. Van Winkle and his bodyguard were charged with three weapons offenses. Van Winkle pleaded no contest
Nolo contendere
is a legal term that comes from the Latin for "I do not wish to contend." It is also referred to as a plea of no contest.In criminal trials, and in some common law jurisdictions, it is a plea where the defendant neither admits nor disputes a charge, serving as an alternative to a pleading of...
.
In January 2001, Van Winkle was arrested by police in Davie, Florida
Davie, Florida
Davie is a town in Broward County, Florida, United States. The town's population was 91,992 at the 2010 census.- History :Davie was founded by Jake Tannebaum and Tamara Toussaint. The original name of the town was Zona. In 1909 R.P. Davie assisted then Governor Broward by draining the swamplands...
for assault
Assault
In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...
ing his wife, Laura. According to the criminal complaint, Van Winkle and his wife argued as they drove on Interstate 595
Interstate 595 (Florida)
Interstate 595 , also known as the Port Everglades Expressway and as the unsigned State Road 862, is a Interstate highway that connects Interstate 75 and Alligator Alley in the west with Florida's Turnpike, Interstate 95, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, US 1, and SR A1A before...
. Van Winkle admitted to pulling hair from her head to prevent her from jumping out of the truck's window. He pleaded guilty to charges of disorderly conduct four months later, and was sentenced to probation and ordered to attend family therapy
Family therapy
Family therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy, family systems therapy, and family counseling, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of...
sessions.
Van Winkle's pet wallaroo, Bucky, and pet goat, Pancho, escaped from his Port St. Lucie, Florida home in November 2004. After wandering around local streets for over a week, the animals were caught, and returned to Ice. He had to pay a $220 fine for expired pet tags, and an undisclosed fine for the escape of the animals.
Van Winkle appeared in West Palm Beach court on September 2007 to be arraigned for driving with an expired license. In the months leading up to the court hearing, Ice had been pulled over for doing 74 in a 45-mph zone, violating high-occupancy vehicle lane
High-occupancy vehicle lane
In transportation engineering and transportation planning, a high-occupancy vehicle lane is a lane reserved for vehicles with a driver and one or more passengers...
restrictions and having illegally tinted car windows.
On April 10, 2008, Van Winkle was arrested in Palm Beach County on a battery charge for allegedly kicking and hitting his wife. He was released the following day after she declared that her husband had only pushed her. In court, the couple's neighbor, Frank Morales, stated that it was merely a verbal argument. Van Winkle was ordered by a Florida court to stay away from his wife following his arrest, and to communicate with his children only if Morales accompanied him. The judge told Van Winkle that he could only contact his wife via telephone. On April 29, 2008, Van Winkle's lawyers, Bradford Cohen and Joseph LoRusso, were able to get the case dropped after providing the state attorney with evidence that conflicted with what was originally reported.
Style and influences
Van Winkle's current live performances feature a mix of newer, rock and techno-influenced material and old school hip hopOld school hip hop
Old school hip hop describes the earliest commercially recorded hip hop music , and the music in the period preceding it from which it was directly descended . Old school hip hop is said to end around 1983 or 1984 with the emergence of Run–D.M.C., the first new school hip hop group...
. Van Winkle performs with a live drummer and DJ, and sometimes sprays his audience with bottled water. Van Winkle's performances often feature an inflatable grim reaper balloon, a dancer in a clown mask, and confetti thrown into the audience. Describing his performances, Van Winkle stated "It's high energy, stage diving, pyrotechnics, girls showing their breasts. It's crazy party atmosphere."
Van Winkle stated that his musical style was influenced by underground music
Underground music
Underground music comprises a range of different musical genres that operate outside of mainstream culture. Such music can typically share common values, such as the valuing of sincerity and intimacy; an emphasis on freedom of creative expression; an appreciation of artistic creativity...
, rather than mainstream music, and that his influences included hip hop and funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
artists such as Funkadelic
Funkadelic
Funkadelic was an American band most prominent during the 1970s. The band and its sister act Parliament, both led by George Clinton, began the funk music culture of that decade.-History:...
, Rick James
Rick James
James Ambrose Johnson, Jr. , better known by his stage name Rick James, was an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. James was a popular performer in the late 1970s and 1980s, scoring four number-one hits on the U.S. R&B charts performing in the genres of funk and R&B...
, Roger Troutman
Roger Troutman
Roger Troutman was the lead singer of the band Zapp who helped spearhead the Funk movement and heavily influenced West Coast hip hop due to the scene's heavy sampling of his music over the years...
, Egyptian Lover
Egyptian Lover
Greg Broussard , better known by his stage name Egyptian Lover is an American musician, vocalist, producer and DJ, and was an important part of the L.A. dance music and rap scene in the early 1980s....
and Parliament
Parliament (band)
Parliament was a funk band most prominent during the 1970s. It and its sister act Funkadelic, both led by George Clinton, began the funk music culture of that decade.-History:...
. Van Winkle is a big fan of 50's and 60's Reggae and Bob Marley
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers...
's work and has also stated that he enjoys Rage Against the Machine
Rage Against the Machine
Rage Against the Machine is an American rock band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1991, the group's line-up consists of vocalist Zack de la Rocha, bassist and backing vocalist Tim Commerford, guitarist Tom Morello and drummer Brad Wilk...
, Slipknot
Slipknot (band)
Slipknot is an American heavy metal band from Des Moines, Iowa. Formed in 1995, the group was founded by percussionist Shawn Crahan and bassist Paul Gray...
and System of a Down
System of a Down
System of a Down, also known by the acronym SOAD and often shortened to System, is a rock band from Southern California. The band was formed in 1994. It consists of Serj Tankian , Daron Malakian , Shavo Odadjian and John Dolmayan...
.
Van Winkle sometimes plays bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
and keyboards
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
on studio recordings. Vanilla Ice refereed to his mainstream music as "above-ground" rather than underground, as he tried to make danceable beats and removed expletives so that the songs could reach a wider audience. A lot of his early hits had Ice boasting sexual conquests, in 1991, Van Winkle was quoted "I rap about what I know. Girls and stuff. That's what is going through my head.". Ice's lyricism evolved with him and when asked about his darker sound in 2002, Ice replied; "Music is about reflection and I’m just reflecting my life and everything it’s been and there’s no way I’m going to be able to stress what I want and mean over a break beat, you know, it’s too emotional and it’s too intense, so you have to have the intensity of the band, it’s like a symphony, you know, you have to build on the intense parts, and so it just wasn’t going to happen, to come extreme over some hip hop record, so to exercise my demons I had to have the band."
Legacy
Along with Beastie BoysBeastie Boys
Beastie Boys are an American hip hop trio from New York City. The group consists of Mike D who plays the drums, MCA who plays the bass, and Ad-Rock who plays the guitar....
, 3rd Bass
3rd Bass
3rd Bass was an American hip-hop group that rose to fame in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and was notable for being one of the first successful interracial hip-hop groups.-Career:...
and House of Pain
House of Pain
House of Pain is an American hip hop group who released three albums in the 1990s before lead rapper Everlast left to pursue his solo career again. The group's name is a reference to the H.G. Wells novel The Island of Dr...
, Van Winkle was one of the earliest white rappers to attain major success. Chuck D
Chuck D
Carlton Douglas Ridenhour , better known by his stage name, Chuck D, is an American rapper, author, and producer. He helped create politically and socially conscious rap music in the mid-1980s as the leader of the rap group Public Enemy.- Early life :Ridenhour was born in Queens, New York...
has credited Van Winkle as a regional breakthrough, stating "He broke through in the mid-South, in a Southern area in Texas, in something that was kind of indigenous to that hip-hop culture down there. He just doesn’t get credit for it." Vanilla Ice was one of the first Caucasian rappers to gain worldwide fame and recognition and the first solo white rapper to reach the Billboard 100. After Van Winkle's early success on radio, Chuck D remembers "When ["Ice, Ice, Baby"] came out, black people liked it until they found out he was white, and three years later, no one would admit to buying his record." Radio personality Casey Kasem
Casey Kasem
Kemal Amin "Casey" Kasem is an American radio personality and voice actor who is best known for being the host of the nationally syndicated Top 40 countdown show American Top 40, and for voicing Shaggy in the popular Saturday morning cartoon franchise Scooby-Doo.Kasem, along with Don Bustany and...
considered Vanilla Ice the #1 Rap Star in history.
In 1991, 3rd Bass released a single called "Pop Goes the Weasel
Pop Goes the Weasel (3rd Bass song)
"Pop Goes the Weasel" is the best-selling single from hip hop trio 3rd Bass; it appears on their third album, Derelicts of Dialect .Released a year after the ill-fated Cactus Revisited E.P., "Pop Goes the Weasel" instantly became a hit and soon went gold. The song helped the album reach gold status...
", and in the lyrics comparing Van Winkle unfavorably to Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
. The song's music video featured Henry Rollins
Henry Rollins
Henry Rollins is an American singer-songwriter, spoken word artist, writer, comedian, publisher, actor, and radio DJ....
as Van Winkle, who is depicted as being assaulted by 3rd Bass. Del tha Funkee Homosapien
Del tha Funkee Homosapien
Teren Delvon Jones , better known as Del the Funky Homosapien or Del tha Funkee Homosapien, is an American MC.-Early life and beginnings: 1990-1997:...
referred to Van Winkle in the lyrics of "Pissin' on Your Steps", which appeared on his 1991 debut album I Wish My Brother George Was Here
I Wish My Brother George Was Here
I Wish My Brother George Was Here is the debut album released by Del tha Funkee Homosapien. The title of the album is a reference to George Clinton, whose music was an influence on Del, as well as to the late pianist Liberace who would on occasion openly pine for his brother George to appear on...
. Similar to 'Pop Goes the Weasel', the song negatively makes a connection between Van Winkle and Elvis, while saying Ice alongside MC Hammer are mocking hip hop by being commercial. Van Winkle responded to "Pop Goes the Weasel" with his 1992 song "The Wrath" and to many of his other critics by stating that they were simply jealous of his early success. He repeated a message to his critics on the Arsenio Hall show telling the critics who thought he would never make it that they could "kiss [his] white ass." In the intro on De La Soul
De La Soul
De La Soul is an American hip hop trio formed in 1987 on Long Island, New York. The band is best known for their eclectic sampling, quirky lyrics, and their contributions to the evolution of the jazz rap and alternative hip hop subgenres...
's album De La Soul Is Dead
De La Soul Is Dead
De La Soul Is Dead is De La Soul's second full-length album, released in 1991 . The album was produced by Prince Paul, whose work on 3 Feet High and Rising was highly praised by music critics. The album was one of the first to receive a five mic rating in the Hip hop magazine The Source...
, Ice's dance moves are complimented. In the 1992 song "Scenario" by A Tribe Called Quest
A Tribe Called Quest
A Tribe Called Quest is an American hip hop group, formed in 1985, and is composed of rapper/producer Q-Tip , rapper Phife Dawg , and DJ/producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad. A fourth member, rapper Jarobi White, left the group after their first album but rejoined in 2006...
, Phife Dawg
Phife Dawg
Malik Isaac Taylor , better known by his stage name Phife Dawg, is an American rapper of Trinidadian descent, and a member of the acclaimed group A Tribe Called Quest with high school classmates Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad...
expresses unbelievability over Ice's Platinum status. Vanilla Ice answered back in the song Hit 'em Hard.
While some business decisions with SBK hurt Van Winkle's reputation in the States, he continued to remain a very sought after personality in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. He was the first rapper to perform in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and the first Indian hip hop song, "Thanda Thanda Pani" (Cold Cold Water) by Baba Sehgal
Baba Sehgal
Baba Sehgal, a Khatri Sikh, is an Indian rapper and actor. Brought up in Lucknow, he was famous in the mid 1990s. He is credited as the first Indian rapper to jump on the Indipop bandwagon, and released an album which got frequent airplay on MTV India...
was inspired heavily by Vanilla Ice's music and style. New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
had written a role specially for Van Winkle in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare is a 1991 American slasher film. It is the sixthand as the title suggests, intended to be the lastfilm in the series of films featuring Freddy Krueger...
, but scheduling conflicts with Van Winkle's To The Extreme Tour forced the role to be scrapped from the script. Michael Bay
Michael Bay
Michael Benjamin Bay is an American film director and producer. He is known for directing high-budget action films characterized by their fast edits, stylistic visuals and substantial practical special effects...
, who had directed Van Winkle in his music video for "I Love You", planned to have the rapper appear in a cameo in the 2007 film Transformers but Van Winkle was busy touring. Robert Van Winkle appears as a video game character in Championship Motocross released in 2001 on PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
. Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit is an American rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Formed in 1995, the group's lineup consists of Fred Durst , Wes Borland , Sam Rivers , John Otto and DJ Lethal . The band achieved mainstream success with their second studio album Significant Other, released in 1999...
frontman Fred Durst
Fred Durst
William Frederick "Fred" Durst is an American musician, director, producer and actor, well known as the frontman of the band Limp Bizkit.-Early life:...
stated "If it wasn't for Vanilla Ice, none of us white boys would be here today.". Former Ultimate Fighting Championship
Ultimate Fighting Championship
The Ultimate Fighting Championship is the largest mixed martial arts promotion company in the world that hosts most of the top-ranked fighters in the sport...
light heavyweight
Light Heavyweight (MMA)
The light heavyweight division in mixed martial arts generally refers to competitors weighing between 186 and 205 lb . It sits between the lighter middleweight division, and the heavyweight division....
champion Chuck 'The Iceman' Lidell
Chuck Liddell
Charles David "Chuck" Liddell is a retired American mixed martial artist and former Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight champion. Liddell has an extensive striking background in Kempo, Koei-Kan karate and kickboxing, as well as a grappling background in collegiate wrestling.As of his...
used Ice's song Too Cold for his entrance to the ring.
DJ Buzz Fuzz sampled Vanilla Ice's vocals from his 1990 song "Ice is Working It" for his song "The Intro Killer". Ice is Working It was also featured in the film Little Black Book
Little Black Book
Little Black Book is a 2004 satirical comedy film directed by Nick Hurran.-Plot:Stacy Holt , an associate producer on a daytime talk show , is convinced that her boyfriend Derek is the right man for her, though he has an apparent phobia of commitment, and he's vague about his past relationships...
. Rapper G-Child, best known for her appearance on ego trip's The (White) Rapper Show
Ego trip's The (White) Rapper Show
ego trip's The Rapper Show was an American reality television series created by ego trip magazine that first aired on VH1. In the show, ten white rappers compete with each other for the chance at a $100,000 grand prize. The show is based in the South Bronx, with MC Serch serving as the host...
, has credited Van Winkle as being a major influence on her work. After meeting Van Winkle in 2000, G-Child performed freestyle rap
Freestyle rap
Freestyle rap commonly refers to rap lyrics which are improvised through a acapella or with instrumental beats, i.e. performed with no previously composed lyrics, or "off the top of the head"...
s at six of Van Winkle's performances, and opened for him four times. After signing with Psychopathic Records, Violent J mentioned that Insane Clown Posse were long time fans of Ice's work; “We were bumping him way before "Ice Ice Baby" blew up. We were bumping him when he had his first record out on Ichiban. Shaggy had the vinyl and we used to bump that shit up in his room. It felt like two summers before that shit blew up.” On a Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
themed episode of SmackDown, John Cena
John Cena
John Felix Anthony Cena is an American professional wrestler, actor, rapper, and television personality. He is currently signed to WWE as a member of its WWE Raw brand....
dressed as Vanilla Ice performing a freestyle rap
Freestyle rap
Freestyle rap commonly refers to rap lyrics which are improvised through a acapella or with instrumental beats, i.e. performed with no previously composed lyrics, or "off the top of the head"...
. Ice Ice Baby and Havin a Roni are featured in the video game DJ Hero
DJ Hero
DJ Hero is a music video game, developed by FreeStyleGames and published by Activision as a rhythm game spin-off of the Guitar Hero franchise. It was released on October 27, 2009 in North America and on October 29, 2009 in Europe...
. In 2011, Virginia Beach rappers Gates and HD released a single and music video named after Vanilla Ice.
Vanilla Ice has been referenced in various Hollywood films and television shows. In Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is a 1997 American science fiction/action-comedy film and the first film of the Austin Powers series. It was directed by Jay Roach and written by Mike Myers who also stars in the title role. Myers also plays Dr. Evil, Austin Powers' arch-enemy...
, Vanilla Ice is seen frozen next to Powers in the cryogenic laboratory. Vince Vaughn
Vince Vaughn
Vincent Anthony "Vince" Vaughn is an American film actor, screenwriter, producer and comedian. He began acting in the late 1980s, appearing in minor television roles before attaining wider recognition with the 1996 movie Swingers...
's character in Be Cool
Be Cool
Be Cool is a 2005 crime-comedy film adapted from Elmore Leonard's 1999 novel of the same name and the sequel to Leonard's 1990 novel Get Shorty about mobster Chili Palmer's entrance into the film industry.The film adaptation of Be Cool began production in 2003. It was directed by F...
was loosely based on Vanilla Ice, even parodying the urban myth that Ice was hung upside down over a hotel balcony. In the 2008 film Step Brothers
Step Brothers (film)
Step Brothers is a 2008 American slapstick buddy-comedy film directed by Adam McKay, produced by Judd Apatow and Jimmy Miller, and stars Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, who originally teamed up in Talladega Nights . The screenplay was written by Ferrell and McKay, from a story written by Ferrell,...
, Adam Scott's
Adam Scott (actor)
Adam Scott is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Henry Pollard in the Starz comedy series Party Down and as Ben Wyatt in the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation....
character wins a high school talent show by dancing and lip syncing to "Ice Ice Baby". It was revealed in the seventh season of Friends
Friends
Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
that Chandler Bing
Chandler Bing
Chandler Muriel Bing is a fictional character on the popular U.S. television sitcom Friends, portrayed by Matthew Perry.-Background:Chandler Muriel Bing was born on April 8, 1968, the son of an erotic novelist mother and a cross-dressing Las Vegas star and is of Scottish ancestry. Chandler was Ross...
was in first place in a Vanilla Ice lookalike contest while Ross Geller
Ross Geller
Ross Eustace Geller, Ph.D. is a fictional character on the popular U.S. television series Friends, portrayed by David Schwimmer. The character is noted for his geeky, lovable demeanor.- Origin :...
was in fourth place. Seth Green
Seth Green
Seth Benjamin Green is an American actor, comedian, voice actor, and television producer. He is well known for his role as Daniel "Oz" Osbourne in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as Dr. Evil's son Scott in the Austin Powers series of comedy films, Mitch Miller in That '70s Show, and the voice of Chris...
voiced Vanilla Ice in an episode of Robot Chicken
Robot Chicken
Robot Chicken is an American stop motion animated television series created and executive produced by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich along with co-head writers Douglas Goldstein and Tom Root. Green provides many voices for the show...
, where the cast of Surreal Life go to Middle-earth
Middle-earth
Middle-earth is the fictional setting of the majority of author J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place entirely in Middle-earth, as does much of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales....
from The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
where Ice is squashed by an Ent
Ent
Ents are a race of beings in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world Middle-earth who closely resemble trees. They are similar to the talking trees in folklore around the world. Their name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word for giant....
. In the season two premier of The Cleveland Show
The Cleveland Show
The Cleveland Show is an American animated television series that premiered on September 27, 2009, as a part of the "Animation Domination" lineup on Fox in the United States...
, Harder, Better, Faster, Browner, Kenny West (voiced by Kanye West
Kanye West
Kanye Omari West is an American rapper, singer, and record producer. West first rose to fame as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, where he eventually achieved recognition for his work on Jay-Z's album The Blueprint, as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and...
) works at a rap-themed restaurant which features a mechanical Vanilla Ice as an attraction. In the last episode of season 4 of The Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang Theory is an American sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom serve as executive producers on the show, along with Steven Molaro. All three also serve as head writers...
, Raj sings "Ice Ice Baby". He was parodied on Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
portrayed by Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon
Kevin Norwood Bacon is an American film and theater actor whose notable roles include Animal House, Diner, Footloose, Flatliners, Wild Things, A Few Good Men, JFK, Apollo 13, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Trapped, Friday the 13th, Hollow Man, Tremors, Death Sentence, Frost/Nixon, Crazy, Stupid, Love....
where Chris Rock
Chris Rock
Christopher Julius "Chris" Rock III is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer and director. He was voted in the US as the 5th greatest stand-up comedian of all time by Comedy Central...
as Nathan X wonders how a white man dances so well. Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey
James Eugene "Jim" Carrey is a Canadian-American actor and comedian. He has received two Golden Globe Awards and has also been nominated on four occasions. Carrey began comedy in 1979, performing at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, Ontario...
parodied Vanilla Ice in one of his most known sketches on In Living Color
In Living Color
In Living Color is an American sketch comedy television series, which originally ran on the Fox Network from April 15, 1990 to May 19, 1994. Brothers Keenen and Damon Wayans created, wrote, and starred in the program. The show was produced by Ivory Way Productions in association with 20th Century...
, where Carrey dances and raps to White White, Maybe (a parody of "Ice Ice Baby") during the Extremely White Tour (parodying the To The Extreme Tour). Carrey dances again to "Ice Ice Baby" in the 2011 movie Mr. Popper's Penguins
Mr. Popper's Penguins (film)
Mr. Popper's Penguins is a live-action family comedy film distributed by 20th Century Fox starring Jim Carrey, based on the children's book of the same name. The film was originally slated for a release on August 12, 2011, but was moved up to June 17, 2011....
.
Eminem
Eminem
Marshall Bruce Mathers III , better known by his stage name Eminem or his alter ego Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter and actor. Eminem's popularity brought his group project, D12, to mainstream recognition...
has often name-dropped Vanilla Ice in his songs. Starting during taped freestyles he did with rapper Proof
Proof (rapper)
DeShaun Dupree Holton better known as Proof his stage name, was an American rapper from Detroit, Michigan. During his career, he was a member of the groups Goon Squad, 5 Elementz, Promatic, and most notably D12...
in 1992 where they performed against each other portraying Ice and MC Hammer, respectively. In his first single "Just Don't Give a Fuck
Just Don't Give a Fuck
"Just Don't Give a Fuck" is a song by American rapper Eminem. The original version of this track was on Eminem's independent demo release The Slim Shady EP...
", Eminem mentions Ice alongside Everlast
Everlast (musician)
Erik Francis Schrody , better known by his stage name Everlast, is a Grammy Award-winning American rapper and songwriter, known for his solo hit "What It's Like" and as the front-man for rap group House of Pain. He is also part of the hip-hop supergroup La Coka Nostra, which consists of members of...
, boasting in a playful manner that he's a better rapper. In "Role Model", Eminem says he ripped out Vanilla Ice's dreadlocks. Van Winkle responded to in a magazine interview with Vibe saying that Eminem "raps like a girl". While Vanilla Ice and Eminem neither look at their responses as an actual beef, Eminem did reply to the quote in his song "Marshall Mathers" which also featured a verbal attack on the Insane Clown Posse. Eminem mentioned Ice again in the song "Purple Pills
Purple Pills
"Purple Pills" is a hip hop single by D12 from their 2001 debut album Devil's Night...
" in 2001, which caused Vanilla Ice's only response in song. On his album Bi-Polar, Ice mentions Eminem in a positive light ("Hip Hop Rules") and in a negative light ("Exhale"), however, Van Winkle stated that he has no bad feelings towards Eminem. In a 2002 interview, Vanilla Ice stated that he thought Eminem's references were flattering, going on to say "I give him credit, I think he’s talented, I think he’s a killer rapper, you know I don’t compare myself to him because he’s another white rapper, I don't compare myself to any other rapper period, I don’t colorize hip hop, it’s stupid, but for people who are doing that are just looking through the eyes of a racial standpoint, and it really shouldn’t be looked at that way, you’re looking at two musicians that are in a broad brand of hip hop, so you don’t need to compare us two. Following me, any white rapper is going to have to hear 'oh, you think you’re Vanilla Ice?', so I am sure he’s heard that."
In 2002, Eminem mentions Ice again on The Eminem Show
The Eminem Show
The Eminem Show is the fourth studio album by the American rapper Eminem, released in 2002. It was the best-selling album of 2002 in the United States, with sales of 7.6 million copies. At the Grammy Awards of 2003 it was nominated for Album of the Year and became Eminem's third LP in four years to...
and in the film 8 Mile
8 Mile (film)
8 Mile is a 2002 American hip-hop drama film written by Scott Silver, directed by Curtis Hanson, and starring Eminem, Mekhi Phifer, Brittany Murphy, and Kim Basinger....
. Vanilla Ice responded at the 2004 Gathering of the Juggalos, concluding his show by chanting “Fuck Eminem / Juggalo Love” alongside the audience while his DJ played him out. In the 2011 song Fast Lane
Fast Lane (song)
"Fast Lane" is the lead single by hip hop duo Bad Meets Evil, a group composed of Royce da 5'9" and Eminem, from their first EP Hell: The Sequel. It's their first single as a group since the 1999 hit "Nuttin' to Do" and the duo's major label debut single, due to a break-up in late 2000...
, Eminem raps about riding in his car while listening to Ice Ice Baby. In Ice’s 2011 song “Bought & Sold”, Ice goes through his career and name drops Eminem in the first verse.
In 2007, Nike released Vanilla Ice shoes for their Fallen Heroes pack. In March 2009, Van Winkle participated in a Virgin Mobile
Virgin Mobile
Virgin Mobile is a brand used by many mobile phone service providers across the globe; its headquarters are based in the United Kingdom. Virgin Mobile has local operations in Australia, Canada, France, India, South Africa, Greece, United Kingdom and the United States. It briefly also had operations...
advertising campaign titled "Right Music Wrongs", apologizing for his 1990s image. As part of the campaign, Van Winkle was placed on "trial", and was voted innocent by users of the campaign website. He also appeared in a commercial for the South African light beer Castle Lite. In 2010, Vanilla Ice was featured on the debut single of the Irish duo John & Edward, a mashup
Mashup (music)
A mashup or bootleg is a song or composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another...
of "Under Pressure
Under Pressure
"Under Pressure" is a 1981 song recorded by Queen and David Bowie. It marked Bowie's first released collaboration with another recording artist as a performer, and is featured on Queen's 1982 album Hot Space. The song reached #1 on the UK Singles Chart. It was also number 31 on VH1's 100 Greatest...
" and "Ice Ice Baby
Ice Ice Baby
"Ice Ice Baby" is a hip hop song written by American rapper Vanilla Ice and DJ Earthquake. The song samples the bassline of "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie, who did not initially receive songwriting credit or royalties until after it had become a hit...
". "Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby)
Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby)
"Under Pressure " is the debut single by Irish pop duo Jedward. The song is a mashup of "Under Pressure", originally recorded in 1981 by Queen and David Bowie, and "Ice Ice Baby", recorded by Vanilla Ice in 1989. Vanilla Ice also provides vocals for the track...
" was released in the United Kingdom on January 31, 2010 via download and as a physical single on February 15, 2010. In 2010, Serbian
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
musicians Slađa Delibašić and Shwarz released the single and music video Dizel Power. The music video and song feature various references to Vanilla Ice, including the performers dancing next to a graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
mural
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
of Ice.
Band members
Current- DJ Dirty Chopstix — turntables
- Clint Eastwood — drums
- Krazy Klown — dancer and background vocals
- Maniac – dancer
Former
- Earthquake (1987–2010) — turntables and background vocals
- DJ Don't Play (1985–2009) – turntables and background vocals
- Zero (1985–2005) — turntables and background vocals
- D-Shay (1985–1991) — turntables and drums
- Tha Hit ManSeven AntonopoulosChris Antonopoulos is Greek-American rock drummer, who played on Sabian Cymbals forOpiate for the Masses-Career:...
(1997–2005) — drums - Boom (1990–1995) – drums
- BobzillaBob KakahaRobert 'Bob' Kakaha, also known as Bobzilla is an American bassist best known as the bassist for heavy metal band Damageplan and is currently a member of heavy metal supergroup Hellyeah.-Life and career:...
(2000–2004) — bass - Doug Ardito (1998–2001) — bass
- Scott Evil (1997–1999) — bass
- Rod J (1995–2003) — Hype Man and background vocals
- Chill (1992–1994) – Hype Man and background vocals
- 2Hype (1990-1991) – Hype Man
- Hi-Tec (1985–1995) — dancer and background vocals
- Coco (1985–2010) — dancer and background vocals
- Squirrel (1985–1995) — dancer and background vocals
- Twist (1987–1993) — dancer and background vocals
- E-Roc (1987–1991) — dancer and background vocals
- Juice (1989–1991) — dancer and background vocals
- Steebo (1990–1992) — dancer and background vocals
Discography
- Hooked (1989)
- To the ExtremeTo the ExtremeTo the Extreme is the major label debut studio album of American rapper Robert "Vanilla Ice" Van Winkle. Released in 1990, it is Van Winkle's best selling album. The album was initially released in 1989 by independent record label Ichiban Records under the title Hooked. Van Winkle signed to SBK...
(1990) - Extremely LiveExtremely Live-Charts:...
(1991) - Mind Blowin (1994)
- Hard to SwallowHard to SwallowHard to Swallow is the third studio album by American rapper Robert Van Winkle under the name Vanilla Ice. Released by Republic Records in 1998, the album was the first album the performer recorded after a four year hiatus following the 1994 release of Mind Blowin...
(1998) - Bi-Polar (2001)
- Platinum UndergroundPlatinum UndergroundPlatinum Underground is the fifth studio album by American rapper Vanilla Ice. Released on August 16, 2005, it is the rapper's third independent release, after Hooked and Bi-Polar...
(2005) - WTF - Wisdom, Tenacity & FocusWTF (album)WTF is the sixth studio album by American rapper Vanilla Ice. Originally scheduled for a 2009 release, it was officially released as a digital download on August 30, 2011 through Radium Records....
(2011)
Awards and Nominations
American Music Awards| Year | Nominated work | Award | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 American Music Awards of 1991 The 18th Annual American Music Awards were held on January 28, 1991.-Pop/Rock Category:-Soul/R&B Category:-Country Category:-Rap/Hip-Hop Category:-Heavy Metal Category:-Dance Category:-Performances:*MC Hammer- "Here Comes The Hammer"... |
Vanilla Ice | Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist | |
| Vanilla Ice | Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Artist | ||
| To The Extreme To the Extreme To the Extreme is the major label debut studio album of American rapper Robert "Vanilla Ice" Van Winkle. Released in 1990, it is Van Winkle's best selling album. The album was initially released in 1989 by independent record label Ichiban Records under the title Hooked. Van Winkle signed to SBK... |
Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Album | ||
| Vanilla Ice | Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop New Artist |
Grammy Awards
| Year | Nominated work | Award | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 Grammy Awards of 1991 The 33rd Grammy Awards were held on February 20, 1991. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year. Quincy Jones was the night's big winner winning a total of six awards including Album of the Year.-Award winners:*Record of the Year... |
"Ice, Ice Baby" | Best Rap Solo Performance |
People's Choice Awards
| Year | Nominated work | Award | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | "Ice, Ice Baby" | Best New Song |
The Factual Entertainment Awards
| Year | Nominated work | Award | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | "The Vanilla Ice Project" | Best Home Show |
Filmography
| Year | Film | Role | Other notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze is a 1991 American live-action film, It is the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, being the direct sequel to the 1990 film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Secret of the Ooze was then followed by a third film in 1993, and a fourth... |
Club Performer | Film debut |
| Cool as Ice Cool as Ice Cool as Ice is a 1991 American musical romance film directed by David Kellogg and starring rapper Vanilla Ice in his feature film debut. The film focuses on the character of Johnny, a freewheeling, motorcycle-riding rapper who arrives in a small town and meets Kathy, an honor student who catches... |
John 'Johnny' Van Owen | Won Golden Raspberry for "Worst New Star" | |
| 2000 | Da Hip Hop Witch Da Hip Hop Witch Da Hip Hop Witch is a 2000 American horror/comedy film directed by Dale Resteghini. The film is a parody of The Blair Witch Project, and features appearances by Eminem, Ja Rule, Mobb Deep, Pras, Rah Digga, Vitamin C and Vanilla Ice.-Plot:... |
Vanilla Ice | |
| 2002 | The New Guy The New Guy The New Guy is a 2002 American teen comedy directed by Ed Decter. The film tells the story of high school loser Dizzy Gillespie Harrison. Dizzy is an unpopular, high school band geek going through a hellish senior year... |
Seth | |
| 2005 | The Helix...Loaded The Helix...Loaded The Helix...Loaded is a parody of The Matrix and Fight Club, written and directed by A. Raven Cruz and starring Scott Levy and Vanilla Ice.-Plot:... |
Theo | |
| 2006 | The Bros. | Vanilla Ice | |
| 2010 | Big Money Rustlas Big Money Rustlas Big Money Rustlas is an American Western comedy film directed by Paul Andresen. The film is the prequel to the 2000 film Big Money Hustlas. Joseph Bruce wrote the story, and he, Andresen, and Studebaker Duchamp adapted the story into a screenplay. Their writing was influenced by classic Western... |
Heckler | |
| 2010 | The Vanilla Ice Project The Vanilla Ice Project The Vanilla Ice Project is a reality TV show about renovating houses on the DIY Network. It is hosted by rapper and handyman Vanilla Ice who has experience with home improvement and flipping since the 1990s; buying houses in his early twenties and getting more into home improvement starting in 1998... |
Host | |
| 2012 | I Hate You, Dad I Hate You, Dad I Hate You, Dad is the working title for an upcoming comedy starring Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg. the original script was written by David Caspe with a later rewrite coming from David Wain and Ken Marino. Sean Anders and John Morris will serve as directors... |
Antonio |