Vanilla Ice

Vanilla Ice rose to become only the second white rapper ever to claim the top of the charts thanks to the chart-topping single “Ice Ice Baby” and its parent album, To the Extreme. Without the street credibility enjoyed by the Beastie Boys, the Miami-born rapper manufactured his own by asserting a violent gangster history. Late in 1990 the track reached number one on the strength of its driving bass line, which sampled David Bowie and Queen’s “Under Pressure.” To the Extreme matched that success, occupying the summit for 16 weeks and moving more than seven million copies. He began shooting the feature film Cool as Ice in spring 1990, yet when the movie arrived in theaters that fall his popularity had already collapsed; the album stayed at number one far longer than the soundtrack remained on the charts at all.

Sensing his moment had passed, Vanilla Ice stepped away for a couple of years and resurfaced in 1994 with Mind Blowin’. Dropping the pop-rap approach of his debut, he adopted the laid-back, rolling funk associated with Cypress Hill as well as that group’s preoccupation with pot. The album flopped commercially and vanished from stores almost immediately. On 1998’s Hard to Swallow he tried to recast himself as a hardcore, gangsta-styled rapper, but listeners showed no interest. A comparable effort arrived with 2001’s Bipolar, which positioned him simultaneously as rapper and rocker, again to widespread indifference.