Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 29, 1991 TAG: 9103290436
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES BERNARD THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But perhaps most stinging, rap purists refer to Vanilla Ice as the "Elvis of rap," a white performer who has capitalized on the most influential black music to emerge in the last 20 years.
Vanilla Ice shrugs off the comparison. "I don't know who wrote it in the first place," he says. "I'm not Elvis Presley; I'm Vanilla Ice. I don't know anything about him except that he made movies and was a superstar. I never bought any of his records."
But influence is not the question; his place in the pop world is. In a society perceived as indifferent and even hostile to minorities, rappers like KRS-One and Ice Cube are the voice of an increasingly frustrated young black America.
Vanilla Ice, on the other hand, offers easily digestible raps about girls, cars and dancing. Aficionados know that Vanilla Ice cannot match the cleverness of LL Cool J., the verbal gymnastics of Brand Nubian, the humor of Digital Underground. But Vanilla Ice is white, sexy, palatable in the suburbs and thus highly marketable.
Where many critically acclaimed black rappers struggle for exposure, the 22-year-old Vanilla Ice has managed to become a huge star since the release of his first major-label album, "To the Extreme" (SBK Records), in September. His debut single, "Ice Ice Baby," was the first rap song to reach No. 1 on the pop singles chart. By November, he had bumped M.C. Hammer from his 21-week occupation of the top pop album slot, and he held that position into February.
Moreover, Vanilla Ice is in the midst of his first major tour as a headliner - he plays Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Salem Civic Center - and has signed an endorsement deal with Coca-Cola. SBK is rushing a follow-up while "To the Extreme" is still hot.
The new record, scheduled for release next month, features live renditions of his hits and five previously unrecorded songs, including "Satisfaction," which, yes, heavily borrows from the Rolling Stones standard. The rapper had wanted to include the number on "To the Extreme," but the Stones organization balked. No one's balking now at Vanilla Ice's ability to sell records and generate royalties.
After filming a cameo for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze," which opened last week to huge ticket sales, Vanilla Ice signed a million-dollar contract with SBK Pictures. Although a script has not been chosen, the rapper will film an action-adventure this spring.
Because of the speed and scope of his success, Vanilla Ice has been subject to considerable scrutiny. The firestorm started last Nov. 18, when a front-page article in The Dallas Morning News reported inaccuracies in the life story he had been feeding the press.
The revelations exposed Vanilla Ice, the tough-talking, quick-footed rapper who was supposedly raised in Miami's mean streets, as Robert Van Winkle, who spent most of his high-school years in an affluent Dallas suburb.
The facts surfaced around the same time that the pop duo Milli Vanilli confessed to not singing on their own multiplatinum album. In many minds, Vanilla Ice, with his sculpted hair and cheekbones, was the same kind of pretty pop figurehead.
Although his publicist has since quietly revised his official biography, Vanilla Ice is unrepentant.
Was his upbringing really rough and tumble? "I never said anything to beef up my background," he maintains. "I'm from the streets. That's where I learned to dance and rap. It should be obvious to anybody's eye that a white guy doing what I'm doing had to be exposed to the streets."
What about the discredited claim that he attended the same Miami high school as Luther (Luke) Campbell of the 2 Live Crew? "I never said I went to the same high school as Luke. That's impossible. He's five or six years older than I am. I did say that I went to one of the schools he attended."
About the national motocross championships, of which the press can find no evidence? "I won three national championships," he insists.
Vanilla Ice bristles at the suggestion that the media has put him on the defensive. Any rapper, but especially a white rapper, needs a "street" credibility that Vanilla Ice's suburban upbringing doesn't automatically confer. "It doesn't matter," he says, then manages to invoke and mangle two of rap's most tired phrases at the same time: "It ain't where you're from; it's where you're at. Bottom line: don't believe the hype."
Vanilla Ice wants to avoid being characterized as a rap wannabe who is, well, vanilla. He is proud that audiences chant "go white boy" at concerts. "My neighborhood was predominantly black, my school was predominantly black. I got `go white boy, go white boy' from City Lights, a totally black club in Dallas. No other white person would set foot in that club, but I performed there every night. My black friends in seventh grade called me Vanilla. I got it from them."
Vanilla Ice did emerge from a black scene: his manager, Tommy Quon, discovered him working the crowds at the now-defunct City Lights. Earthquake, Vanilla Ice's disc jockey and co-writer, was the club's house DJ, and its doormen, Big E. and Chilly, are now his bodyguards. Ice's background dancers, all black, were recruited from City Lights. Hence his touring company re-creates the club scene from which he blossomed.
But Vanilla Ice is no longer in that environment. According to his road manager, John Bush, the year-end slew of club dates, a warm-up to his current tour, drew an overwhelmingly white, suburban crowd, many of whom may not own any other rap albums.
Such racial dynamics make the rapper uncomfortable. "Being white helps me, I guess, but I wish it didn't," he says. He credits his meteoric rise to the promotional muscle of his record company: "My being white had something to do with it, but not as much as they say it does. It depends on the contract you sign with the record company. They can make you No. 1 if they push you enough."
It's not that simple. Recent developments in the hip-hop world made the emergence of a sexy white rapper with such huge marketing potential virtually inevitable.
Innovative artists like Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions and the Jungle Brothers have little opportunity to reach a larger audience ("Ice Ice Baby" was played on radio stations that had never presented rap before, which many critics interpreted as a sign of racism).
Where rap, at its core, reflects the anger or humor of young blacks, Vanilla Ice's lyrics are a thematic descendant of the Beach Boys rather than the Black Panthers or Richard Pryor.
"I don't know much about political stuff," Vanilla Ice says. "I rap about what I know. Girls and stuff. That's what is going through my head."
Aside from the issues of race, resume and bad critical reviews, what makes Vanilla Ice most defensive is the phrase "overnight success."
"It might seem like that. I mean, I never imagined my career would take off like it has. But I've struggled," he says. "I had a first album out two or three years ago, and we struggled to get a deal before that. Remember, I wrote `Ice Ice Baby' 3 1/2 years ago. Many people don't know that."
When he hits the stage, Vanilla Ice compensates for any lack of musical and lyric-writing prowess. "When you come to a Vanilla Ice show," he says, "you get Vanilla Ice. I don't mean to talk bad about anybody, but when you go to a New Kids on the Block show, who do you get?" Pause. "Maurice Starr," he answers flatly, referring to the manager who writes most of their music and tightly orchestrates their shows.
It is telling that Vanilla Ice compares himself not to other rappers but to New Kids, a pop-marketing phenomenon for pre-teens.
But Vanilla Ice is his own creation. He choreographs his own team of dancers, writes lyrics, produces much of his music and refuses to lip-sync, even though his athletic dances leave him breathless.
On stage, Vanilla Ice reaches out to audience members, raps enthusiastically and has perfected his stage chatter. It's no wonder his videos put his performances front and center.
He is now pop's reigning sex symbol. When he pumps his pelvis, which is often, the audience, largely teen-age and female, screams even louder. He frequently coaxes them to call his name, and they do so without hesitation. With a huge grin, he soaks up the adoration as if to bolster himself from the naysayers.
The questions will remain, but so will Vanilla Ice - at least for a while.
AUTHOR NOTE: James Bernard is associate editor of the New York-based rap magazine Source.
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB