This summer Vanilla Ice is set to hit the road alongside such luminaries as Salt-N-Pepa, Tone Lōc, Color Me Badd, Coolio, Biz Markie and Kool Moe Dee, among others, for a nostalgic “I Love The ‘90s Tour.” Proving that the generation that grew up on Hammer Pants and 8-Ball jackets ain’t getting any younger.
Recently while compiling a playlist of rap music I can sing and dance to with my young daughter I decided to include “Ice Ice Baby.”
Let me pause for a second and say that I wasn’t a fan back in the day. Though I knew who Vanilla Ice was, I didn’t listen to much pop music circa 1990, so I never heard the song in its entirety until years later. In 1999, I was cruising in the back of some freshman Aussie rules football player’s Jeep somewhere outside of Perth while studying abroad. He dropped in a mixtape and sang along to every word as we barrelled along through the night with the top down. I remember thinking, “Well this is random.”
Since I put it on my playlist -- along with such G-rated masterpieces as “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” “Bust A Move” and “Principal’s Office -- the song has stayed lodged in my head. Not just because of David Bowie/Queen’s great hook, though that helps - there’s something about the lyrics and bravado of hearing him rap about driving through the streets of Miami that’s just kind of entertaining.
As I’ve been singing the lyrics out loud to my daughter, I’ve been thinking about Vanilla Ice’s place in music history and how it might be time to rehab his signature song’s reputation. So here goes, or as Ice would say: “Yo, VIP, Let’s Kick It.”
“Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it”
The most consistent critique I’ve heard about the song over the years is that the whole thing is a ripoff of David Bowie/Queen’s masterpiece “Under Pressure.” In his appearance on “Behind the Music” in 1999 Mr. Ice probably didn’t help his case.
But as rap music nears its fourth decade, sampling a tune and rapping or singing over it is now a fully respectable, Rock-‘N’-Roll-Hall-of-Fame-worthy artform. It’s been done not only by the likes of Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer, but by all the stalwarts of the genre, like Puff Daddy, Dr. Dre, Eminem, etc., etc., etc. Vanilla Ice’s tourmates certainly made use of the practice: Tone Lōc sampled Van Halen’s “Jamie’s Cryin’ ” on “Wild Thing;” Coolio sampled Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise” on “Gangsta’s Paradise;” and Biz Markie sampled Freddie Scott’s “You Got What I Need” on “Just A Friend.” This week Entertainment Weekly gave an A+ to Beyoncé for her new album “Lemonade” and highlighted the diverse set of artists from whom she sampled.
At this point, to criticize a rapper for sampling is like saying the Monkees weren’t a real band because they used session players on their albums, when numerous other ’60s groups - from the Beach Boys to the Byrds - did too.
“Play That Funky Music White Boy”
Now it’s time to address the real elephant on the dance floor. Vanilla Ice is white. Given the long, ugly and never-ending history of racism in America, we’re all pretty used to racial debates when it comes to music. I’ve heard them all, white people stole rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, etc’. So Vanilla Ice often gets put into the category of cheap racial imitator. On “In Living Color,” Jim Carrey even said as much in his classic parody, “White White Baby.”
I’m white/And I’m Capitalizing/On a trend that’s currently rising
The truth is that the histories of of these genres are a little more complex. Yes, Elvis Presley first got famous mainly off the backs of black artists whom he covered. There were plenty of other white artists who rose to prominence by ripping off black ones and playing toned down versions of their music (Ahem, Pat Boone). But that really is just an oversimplification, as rock ‘n’ roll was really created as a fusion of country western, R&B, jazz and jump blues, and grew out of the contributions from great artists on all sides of the color line.
So while “Ice Ice Baby” may have been the first rap single to top the Billboard charts, his success was an anomaly. Unlike rock ‘n’ roll, there have only been a handful of well-regarded white rappers like the Beastie Boys, Eminem, and Macklemore.
Vanilla Ice wasn’t the same as Elvis. He didn’t have a 20+ year run of hits and b-movies. Very few people would consider him the king of anything. If rap had fizzled out in 1991, then maybe the argument would have some weight. But at this point no one could say Vanilla Ice somehow supplanted anybody else or was a white guy capitalizing on a short term trend. He was simply a performer who hit it big at the right time playing a style of music that was popular. He even helped broaden rap’s exposure, paving the way for artists who came after him to claim they were the ones keeping real.
“Keep My Composure”
Perhaps the biggest detriment to “Ice Ice Baby” and Vanilla Ice’s reputation is the fact that he was so overexposed during his initial run. He was on T.V., videos and movies. He was parodied, and there were a number of fake biographies about his upbringing. He dated Madonna. He wore crazy outfits. He had a hairstyle that would make Bobby Hurley’s barber shudder. He even appeared in his own bad movie, “Cool as Ice,” which currently gets an 8 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. (Though I’ve never seen the film, I have to say the trailer is phenomenal and even stars the Dad from “Family Ties.”)
He was everywhere, so much so that the backlash came quick. His live album was panned, and his next album tanked.
In some ways that is one of the great things about listening to music on a computer (and there aren’t a lot of great things; I miss my CD and record collections.) You can just listen to the song based on its own merits, without having to buy the album, without having to listen to any of the other tracks. It can be judged on its own.
By itself, the song is catchy, funny and the lyrics are hilarious. It is a celebration of the joys of youth, cruising the strip, listening to great music, while at the same time he has a little fun with the rhymes.
Quick to the point, to the point, no faking/Cooking MCs like a pound of bacon
“Ice Ice Baby” wasn’t high art, nor was it trying to be. So as the song reaches the good-times-and-great-oldies stage of its lifespan, it’s worth giving it a relisten, not for what it was, or what it was perceived to be, but for what it is, a great party song.
It’s the type of thing anybody, whether they’re cruising the strip in South Beach or driving through the Perth suburbs, can dig.
“Word To Your Mother.”
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