[Music] foreign
really does sound like a classic case of overnight success one day Vanilla Ice was a regular local
nightclub performer and the next he had a number one album an army of devoted fans and could buy
anything he wanted with his Newfound wealth he also had a lot of critics accusing him of
everything from lying about his background to ripping off a genre of music that didn't belong
to people who look like him the hate got so bad that it even drove him to wanting to end it all
then after the lights dimmed on his career he was forced to create a new life and figure out who he
was without the fame Robert Matthew Van Winkle later professionally known as Vanilla Ice was
born in Dallas Texas on October 31st 1967. he grew up never knowing his biological father and doesn't
even share his name isa's surname comes from the man that his mother was married to at the time of
his birth when he was four his mother divorced afterward he grew up moving between Dallas and
Miami due to his stepfather's job his mother would go on to marry a total of four times and give eyes
several half-siblings all of whom had a different father as a self-proclaimed Wild Child ice had
very little supervision and discipline at home in his early teens he developed an interest in
break dancing which led to his friends nicknaming him vanilla as he was the only white kid in the
group even though he wasn't feeling it it stuck eventually vanilla got put together with the name
of his best dance move the eyes at school ice was a poor student and by the time he reached 18 he'd
only made it to the 10th grade not surprisingly he then dropped out one night he visited a South
Dallas Club where at the insistence of his friend he took to the stage to Showcase his dancing and
rapping skills he won the crowd over and was asked by the establishment's manager if he wanted to
perform regularly which he accepted as a performer there ice got the opportunity to open up for the
likes of Rob Base to Live Crew and MC Hammer who ice would go on to develop a great friendship with
contrary to the rumor mill eventually the owner of the club Tommy Kwan offered eyes a contract
with his management company Tommy used some of his earnings from the club to buy studio time so wise
could start laying down some tracks and over the course of the next couple of years eyes focused
on doing exactly that play that funky music was released as Isis debut single along with another
track on the B-side in 1989. it was sent out to various radio stations around the nation but the
single was seldom played and when it was it didn't get the reaction he was hoping for that is until
a DJ in Columbus Georgia decided to play what was on the B-side a song called Ice Ice Baby it
quickly gained a major fan base and other radio stations followed suit the song skyrocketed to
number one on the Billboard Hot 100 as well as the rap songs chart it also went to number one
in Canada and the UK if there was a problem yo I saw me check out the hook while my DJ revolves it
after I signed with sbk records the label remixed and re-recorded his debut album initially put out
by independent label Ichiban records under the new title to the extreme and released it in the fall
of 1990. to the extreme became the fastest selling hip-hop album of all time spending 16 weeks at
number one on the billboard 200. naturally the label wanted ice on the road as soon as possible
to capitalize on his Newfound popularity MC Hammer and old acquaintance from his Club days opened the
door for eyes to join him as an opening act on his tour it sounds like everybody's dream but
it was a nightmare all of a sudden I'm surrounded by strangers telling me what to do I had stylists
and publicists telling me where to go all day from the time I woke up to the time I went
to sleep I had wardrobe people holding up and telling me you're going to wear this when you
do this thing and this when you're on this show to make matters worse every time he refused a
proposal someone would throw money at him they'd say look the big new thing in rap is slow songs
LL Cool J has a slow song we want you to write a slow song I'd be like I'm not gonna write a slow
song are you kidding me and they'd be like here's a check for a million dollars so I sat down and
wrote a slow song it was a million dollars I'd lick my mother's Apple for a million dollars
fun fact in 1990 ice began an eight-month relationship with Madonna who is nine years
his senior she popped up in his dressing room at Madison Square Garden to give him her phone
number they officially became a couple after he visited her in Indiana on the set of A League
of Their Own culminating in his appearance in her Infamous coffee table picture book sex many years
later he'd claimed that she even proposed to him also that year Queen and David Bowie took action
to seek credit and royalties for samples from their 1981 hit Under Pressure used on isai's
baby according to Isis manager they were in such a rush to put the song out that they didn't bother
to get permission to use the sample and he admits that they knew they would eventually have to pay
up the matter was ultimately settled out of core despite that little hiccup ice was hot
super hot this is V to the a-n-i-l-a-i-c-e right here were in the place to be on MTV he had the
number one album in the nation fat pockets and the anime generation of millions of fans those fans
though wanted more they wanted to know as much information as they could about their favorite
Superstar but that proved to be a difficult task since ice wasn't interested in talking about his
personal life his record company though decided to give the people what they wanted and issued a
bio on the rapper to reporters it stated he was a gang banger grew up in the ghettos of Miami
attended a predominantly black high school and that he was a National Motocross Champion it was
all lies ice claimed he had no knowledge of what his label was pedaling around and only found out
about it during interviews where he was questioned why his answers weren't matching the information
they had his manager Tommy Kwan insisted that he got all the info directly from eyes the untruths
maybe wouldn't have been that big of a deal if people had Let It Go a journalist for the Dallas
Morning News newspaper though wasn't about to do that he interviewed ice Twice The First Time Ice
laid out his life story nearly word for word what was said in the bio his label issued however it
all fell apart during the second interview eight days after Isis debut album reached the top of the
charts that reporter's column about Isis fake life story ended up on the front page of the paper Isis
credibility was now completely shot he soldered on and even had some Choice words for certain people
after picking up his award for favorite new pop rock artist at the 1991 American Music Awards and
the people who try to hold me down and talk bad about me kiss my white butt word to your mother
things got taken up another notch during his appearance on the Arsenio Hall Show
where it was clear the talk show host had a bone to pick with the rapper
now you get a little time to expound on that well I just basically said
because you know the people who said I never could make it that I would never amount to
Shi you know the rest and and uh you know that never you know said you know
white boy can't make it in rap music I you know kiss my wife you know to rest
like you know it's like ha right in your face you know so this is a
a white rapper being suppressed kind of uh Revenge
something like that I know a lot of uh a lot of black rappers are probably angry because
some of the white people screaming didn't buy rap until you did it until they saw a vanilla face on
the cover of an album that probably makes them angry because if it makes them angry you know
angry it's not my fault did I have anything to do with that so no they should dog the people
they don't what they're saying is they're showing their own jealousy man that's all
it is you saw Flavor Flav you know me and him so we're homies uh is that why you brought him out
just to show you have a black supporter and no I I brought him out because he's a friend of mine
they don't like that man that don't bother me I'm not liked by a lot of
people a lot of times but I say what I want to say I'm an American Idol right
a couple of weeks after that Keenan Ivory Wayans who interestingly enough introduced
Isis performance at the amas featured a parody of him on his show In Living Color
the spoof titled white white baby with actor Jim Carrey in the lead role roasted eyes in
a similar vein as popular diss tracks who Shot Ya the bridge is over and hit him up
because I just listen to real rap and stupid
record producer Suge Knight also had an issue with ice but it had nothing to do with the color of his
skin or his rhyming everything came to a head one day when they had a face-to-face encounter
the truth about how it all went down continues to remain unclear to this day the most notorious
version was that Shug had hung ice upside down by his ankles over a hotel balcony and threatened to
drop him if he didn't give shook money to start his label Death Row Records another version told
by Ice during a 1996 sit-down interview he did with ABC's Primetime live when a little something
like this shook came to Isis West Hollywood Hotel room to collect royalties on behalf of Mario
Lavelle Johnson a rapper from Dallas who claims he co-wrote Isis number one hit song as well as
several others off the album that's interesting since ice has always said that he wrote the track
when he was 16. I said shook did take him out to the 15th floor balcony but instead of hanging him
over it just had him look over the edge to ensure that ice was aware of just how high up they were
ice then claimed that after Suge roughed up some people in Isis Entourage I signed paperwork giving
Mario and shook a portion of the royalties of the song because he feared for his life several years
later though in his Behind the Music episode ice was singing a different tune claiming that there
wasn't any bad blood between him and Shug Shug maintains that Isis 1996 version was
a complete fabrication Ice's own manager even said that long before the Hotel incident there
had already been paperwork drawn up for Mario to get what was rightfully owed to him while trying
to milk his popularity for all it was worth a Vanilla Ice doll board game and autobiography
all made their way to retail shells go ninja go ninja go go ninja go ninja go go ninja go ninja
go go go go go go go he also tried his hand at acting making his first movie appearance
in the 1991 superhero film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 the Secret of use and contributed the
song ninja rap to the soundtrack in the spring of 1991 ice began to film the movie cool as ice
in which he played a leading role that fall it opened to mainly negative reviews oh yeah cat
words of wisdom drop that zero and give it the hero while his Fame in the US had severely dropped
ice continued touring internationally throughout 1992. before long he'd all but completely faded
from the public Spotlight some say simply due to overexposure by 1994 ice was back and released
his second studio album titled mind-blowing the reviews were bad really bad the project didn't
even crack the album chart his label was over him at this point and dropped him from their roster
during the making of the project ice confesses he wasn't in a good place and drugs was the reason he
was using ecstasy cocaine and heroin my drug of choice was always X more than heroin and
blow I could just pop a pill and instantly feel better about all the [ __ ] in life of course
the problems didn't go away the next morning things were even worse than the day before I
wanted to completely disappear I wouldn't go to the grocery store I wouldn't go to the gas station
if I ordered pizza I'd have somebody else answer the door just so nobody would ever see me Rock
Bottom came when he tried to take his life with an overdose on the 4th of July 1994 after seeking
professional help to recover eyes decided it was time to change his lifestyle he then started to
spend much of his time racing on the Motocross and jet skiing circuits in Florida he also found love
in the summer of 1995 ice met Laura giarita they would marry two years later in late 1995 he set up
a recording studio in Miami and joined a grunge band called picking scabs the following year he
signed with universal Republic records and started performing live again Isis third studio album hard
to swallow dropped in 1998 and featured a darker sound and lyrics than his previous work as well
as various mixtures of different styles of hip-hop and hard rock even though the project didn't put
up any numbers he attracted a whole new audience when he started touring again some who were even
unfamiliar with his more mainstream sound over the years while ice has been quoted as saying
that being a family man is his true purpose he and his wife have had a slew of domestic disturbances
in January 2001 he was arrested by police in Davie Florida for assaulting her according to the
criminal complaint ice and his wife argued as they drove on Interstate 595 and he placed his hand
over her mouth quote to shut her up he did admit to pulling her hair to prevent her from jumping
out of the truck's window similar incidences followed in 2004 and 2008. things between eyes and
his wife unfortunately continued to go downhill and in 2016 she filed for divorce saying that
their nearly 20-year marriage was irreversibly broken I still an Entertainer at heart felt that
diving into the world of reality TV would be a good experience for him he began quite a long
run appearing on shows like The Surreal Life and Dancing with the Stars in 2010 ice premiered his
own reality TV series called the Vanilla Ice Project where he demonstrated his expertise in
real estate and home renovation the show would go on to be a roaring success producing nine seasons
in total over the years Isis continued to release new music periodically including the studio albums
by polar in 2001 Platinum underground in 2005 and WTF wisdom tenacity and focus in 2011. now
he does it for the love of music and isn't at all interested in trying to achieve a level of
stardom he once experienced in the 90s for the last several years ice has been one of the main
Headliners for the worldwide I love the 90s tour which features other acts of the decade including
Color Me Bad All For One CNC Music Factory and until his untimely passing last year Coolio when
asked about why he thinks everything 90s has become so popular again he told the New York
Times in 2022 the 90s are infections the decade was so colorful with neon colors nothing was
that serious it was let's enjoy life let's make friends we had Beavis and Butthead we had block
parties we had fanny packs if you walk through the mall today everyone is wearing items from the 90s
sneakers are going crazy the checkerboard vans that is from the 90s it's all back
thank you