Through the Spyglass: Word to Your Mother
From the moment DJ Kool Herc busted out two turntables during a New York City party in 1973, showing the world his “breakbeat” style, Hip-Hop was born.
James Brown to Bongo Rock to “The Mexican” by Babe Ruth (the English band, not the baseball player), the entire basis was taking the break, the drum-heavy instrumental breakdown that Herc noticed people would dance hardest during, and making an entire set on back-to-back breaks.
Sampling became the blueprint in which Hip-Hop was built up around.
Hip-Hop is, by and large, remix culture. Artists constantly reusing each other’s lyrics, flows, and of course, instrumentals that know no genre.
It is, in essence, a true expression of a free and open culture.
While Hip-Hop started as a Black New Yorkers’ scene, focused on making cassettes of live performances, it would soon evolve into something much grander.
Even as Hip-Hop evolved, the concept of sampling was a staple in the creation of Hip-Hop records. “Rapper’s Delight” by Sugarhill Gang, one of the first commercial released and the first Top 40 Hip-Hop song, sampled/interpolated Chic’s “Good Times” (a song released the same year as “Rapper’s Delight”).
Two years later, they’d sample the Incredible Bongo Band’s cover of “Apache” for their own rendition.
Come 1986, Run DMC would hit Top 5 with their cover/remix of Aerosmith’s “Walk this Way”
Two years later, Tone Lōc would have two Top 3 hits with “Wild Thing,” which sampled Van Halen’s “Jamie’s Cryin’,” and “Funky Cold Medina,” which sampled from various tracks like “Hot Blooded” by Foreigner, “Christine Sixteen” by KISS, and “Can’t Get No Satisfaction” and “Honky Tonk Women” by the Rolling Stones.
Hip-Hop’s meteoric rise is nothing to overlook. What was considered “black music” was crossing over steadily into the mainstream, with audiences of all backgrounds learning to love Hip-Hop. It was unique and original, ironically enough when considering it is build on samplings.
But that’s the point. Nothing about you is original, either. You are pieces of everyone and everything you have ever met, experienced and loved. Hip-Hop, like you, is unique in how it was all put together.
Importantly, it was authentic. Authenticity was, in many aspects, one of the most important features of Hip-Hop. Even after leaving New York and entering cities all across the United States, the one constant expectation was that it was authentic.
Perhaps, in the same vein as Punk Rock before it, it became an indicator of something more raw and real than commercially produced pop or even rock.
So if a record label were to try and make a pop star out of a Hip-Hop artist, it might be met with skepticism.
Worse, what if a record label tried to do when they did with Elvis? Find a handsome white kid who makes predominantly black music and sell it to suburban audiences, then what would happen?
What would happen: you get Vanilla Ice.
Rob Van Winkle was born in 1967 and grew up in the Dallas and Miami areas. By ages 13-14, he had taken up breakdancing; just one of his many interests.
Being the only white breakdancer in his group, they bestowed upon him the nickname “Vanilla.”
After partaking in battle rapping, he would earn the additional label “MC,” becoming “MC Vanilla” before deciding to drop the “MC” entirely in favor of paying homage to one of his dance moves, “The Ice,” and becoming “Vanilla Ice.”
Vanilla Ice would be somewhat of an oddity, to say the least. He’s not the first white person to enter Hip-Hop, but Vanilla Ice’s combined rapping and breakdancing abilities made him stand out and help to deem him legitimate and talented enough to tour with fellow rappers. Vanilla Ice would be opening act for artists such as Ice-T and Sir-Mix-a-Lot during the “Stop the Violence” tour.
In early 1990, Vanilla Ice released his album “Hooked” as part of the independent record label “Ichiban Records.” The first single off the album sampled an earlier radio staple and could instantly be recognized by anyone listening.
That was “Play the Funky Music” by Wild Cherry.
The B-Side to the single was “Ice Ice Baby,” which sampled David Bowie + Queen’s “Under Pressure.”
Public Enemy, major Hip-Hop influences and hovering around the peak of their popularity, tried to convince Def Jam to sign the good-looking Vanilla Ice to a contract before he would ultimately sign with newcomers SBK Records.
Mistake #1.
Under SBK, Vanilla Ice would re-record “Hooked” and rerelease it under the name “To the Extreme.” “Ice Ice Baby” would become the lead single, released commercially on August 22nd, 1990 before “To the Extreme” would be released in full nearly three weeks later on September 10th.
By the week of November 10th, “To the Extreme” would top the Billboard Hot 200 charts and stay there until March 2nd. “Ice Ice Baby” was atop the Billboard Hot 100 charts during the week of November 3rd.
New and fresh to the scene, SBK’s Hip-Hop Elvis was seeing the successes they had hoped he’d see.
At first.
Pushed as a pop star instead of a Hip-Hop artist, there was a distinct lack of what Hip-Hop fans would call “credibility” to his fame and success.
Black artists for years have tried to achieve the successes Vanilla Ice made in short order. Run-DMC’s “Raising Hell,” the album featuring “Walk the Way” could only peak at Number 3. Tone Lōc’s “Lōc-ed After Dark” only held the top position for a week.
To the Extreme was only the fourth “Hip-Hop” album to go number one on the Billboard Hot 200, after the white Beastie Boys’s Licensed to Ill topped the chart in early 1987 for seven weeks, Lōc-ed After Dark’s week in 1989, and MC Hammer 21 non-consecutive weeks on top with “Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em” in 1990.
Sure, MC Hammer was atop the charts just earlier in the year, but the success of “U Can’t Touch This” made him a genuine crossover artist. Hip-Hop purists would hardly have considered MC Hammer real “Hip-Hop.”
Thus, it would ultimately serve as a disservice to be the follow up act of the mainstream’s safe-for-the-suburbs Hip-Hop. Especially if they’re trying to replicate that magic with you.
When trying to be taken seriously in Hip-Hop, your authenticity and credibility is a major factor. Trying to take Hip-Hop commercial was always going to be met with backlash if it lacked those two factors.
Unfortunately for Vanilla Ice, perception is reality, and he was perceived to be neither authentic nor credible.
Made worse was Vanilla Ice opening his mouth.
Vanilla Ice was asked directly about the “Under Pressure” sample, he famously said it was different and not the same beat.
It was.
“Their’s goes ‘Ding ding ding dingy ding-ding.’ Ours goes, ‘Ding ding ding ding dingy ding-ding.'”
MC Hammer never said “U Can’t Touch This” wasn’t sampling “Super Freak” by Rick James.
So in one fall swoop, Vanilla Ice made himself out to look like a liar and even a little dumb.
No amount of “I was only joking,” even if he was, was going to fix that.
Then, of course, when fighting off “Hip Hop Elvis” allegations, one might not be advised to tell critics, while accepting the the award for Favorite New Pop/Rock Artist at the American Music Awards, to “Kiss my white butt.”
Elvis never said that.
In his defense, someone in their mid-20s who was rocketed into superstardom wouldn’t have the PR training or common sense to not make such absurd claims or draw attention to his whiteness, as he’s winning Favorite New Pop Artist awards while making “Hip-Hop,” but the damage was already done.
Mistake #2.
While on tour in February of 1991, SBK Records released a book entitled “Ice by Ice: The Vanilla Ice Story in His Own Words.”
The book was, in fact, not in his own words, but was a total fabrication by his record label. They paid Vanilla Ice nearly a million dollars so they could “authorize” the book. Vanilla Ice wouldn’t be made aware of the contents until after the book’s release.
Mistake #3.
In October of 1991, the movie “Cool as Ice” starring Vanilla Ice would be released.
Mistake #4.
Vanilla Ice, a kid who by all intents and purposes was doing what he loved and had a passion for, was seen as a novelty act at best and a thief and liar at worst.
Hip-Hop was built around samples. This is not a tear down of “Ice Ice Baby” or a ripping apart of Vanilla Ice. Vanilla Ice is not a thief nor can he be merely written off as a culture vulture.
Vanilla Ice was propelled into fame by outside forces, trying to make money off of a handsome young white kid making black music. His record label used his rapping and breakdancing chops to make money, in hopes that he would be their next Elvis, only to gladly dump him aside when that wouldn’t be the case.
Take a step back and realize: Vanilla Ice isn’t the bad guy here. A twenty-something year old kid who gets told he can make money doing what he loved isn’t the bad guy. Yes, he has agency. Yes, he’s not entirely free of guilt. But in taking that step back, you need to look beyond Vanilla Ice and see the bigger picture.
The record label, the music executives, and those above him who put him out for the world to see are directly implicated in his rise and fall.
The United States Pirate Party not only believes in putting individuals before institutions, but we also believe in the promotion of a free and open society.
What Vanilla Ice represents is two fold: an individual getting taken advantage of by an institution (in this case, the commercial music business) and fair use of intellectual property.
Hip-Hop was built around the sample, and people only seemed to care about their songs getting sampled when they wouldn’t see their cut of the success of the new creation.
Vanilla Ice didn’t ask for permission from Queen or David Bowie for the same reason he didn’t ask Wild Cherry: he was an underground Hip-Hop artist who went mainstream on his single. Until he went mainstream, he was making no money off the song.
So who cared?
Vanilla Ice continued on with a tradition of sampling songs you loved to create something new, and say what you will about the output, but it’s hard to deny he was authentic in that endeavor.
Vanilla Ice deserves to be remembered as a kid who was a victim of his own success. The people who built him up and made money off of him were just as ready and happy to send him to the wolves when things weren’t good.
Vanilla Ice was not a thief. A liar? Maybe for a moment, but he backtracked in the years since and has been upfront about the sample.
People deserve to be credited and have their works properly attributed. The United States Pirate Party believes that. The USPP also believes remix culture is valid and, as long as credit and compensation (if monetary gains are there) is given, it should never been seen as “theft.”
The easy thing would be to ignore Vanilla Ice, but as the party founded around the basis of copyright and patents, it feels like the one time the Pirate Party niche can be held under scrutiny.
If one can only apply the Pirate Party belief system to upstanding citizens like Fannie Lou Hamer or John Quincy Adams, but have it fall apart when defending more complicated individuals, then those are not values; they are aesthetics and they are not worth upholding. We know far more Rob Van Winkles than we do Martin Luther Kings.
If you’re going to hate Vanilla Ice, don’t do it because he “stole” something or was “inauthentic.” Vanilla Ice was an individual, and a victim of an institution that didn’t want the best for him.
You can hate him for Cool as Ice though.
That’s right, dear reader. This wasn’t a joke.
April Fools!