Vanilla Ice

White rapper whose real name is Robert Van Winkle, but it should be 'Rip Off Van Winkle' because his only hit was 'Ice Ice Baby' which totally RIPPED OFF the bassline and a piano riff direct from the 1981 hit 'Under Pressure' by Queen and David Bowie. His rip-off song went to #1 in the United States during the autumn of 1990 but practically anybody who knew Bowie or Queen knew this was outright musical plagiarism of the highest degree. Queen and Bowie sued his ass in the biggest musical royalty copywrite dispute in UK history. Vanilla Ice got stung big time. His cred suffered even more when he claimed to have come from the Miami hip-hop scene and it was revealed that he grew up in a suburb of Dallas. His next single was 'Play that Funky Music' (a cover) which went nowhere. He tried to salvage his reputation by a cameo appearance in the film 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2' with a band, doing the 'Ninja Rap' but that didn't stop the snowballing backlash. He soon released a 'live' home video and album in the spring of 1991. That fall he 'starred' in a new movie that tanked, critics said it was shit. It was available on home video just in time for Christmas 2 months later. Since then he largely fell out of the public eye and his Famous Fifteen Minutes ended so fast.

Vanilla Ice was lauded in 1990 as a 'modern James Dean'. Today his fame is a footnote , he's a shooting star, a fraud. The hip-hop community largely disowns him. He basically is a Pat Boone of rap, IOW a milquetoast poser for the suburban whites who think they have a clue about street culture and hip-hop BUT THEY DON'T. Vanilla Ice is a joke.

by I Saw U2 Live Twice September 21, 2020

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