Ice Ice Baby – The Best of Vanilla Ice

It’s well known that the bassline for Ice Ice Baby, Vanilla Ice’s gargantuan and unavoidable 1990 debut, is lifted wholesale from Queen and David Bowie’s 1981 single Under Pressure. Long after IIB became a hit, Messrs Mercury, May, Taylor and Bowie threatened legal action, eventually settling out of court for an undisclosed sum that approximates to “most of the money”.

Less well-known is the disputed fact of credit for the song’s lyrics. Shrouded in claim and counterclaim, the twisting plotlines of their provenance feature a walk-on part – or starring role, depending on who you believe – for one Mario ‘Chocolate’ Johnson, who claims to have written every word of IIB. Ice – real name Robert Van Winkle – denies that Johnson wrote a single one.

Johnson got his nickname from his friend, Death Row Records founder Suge Knight, who according to hip-hop lore visited Ice in a Beverly Hills hotel room and invited him to consider his options. His options were: sign the publishing rights over to Johnson. That Ice was hanging by his feet from a 15th-floor balcony at the time appears to be industry apocrypha, but Knight’s reputation as a very persuasive man goes before him. Ice relented.

One of the facts you’ll most often read about Ice Ice Baby is that it was the first rap song to reach no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. As such it is often credited with helping ‘diversify’ hip-hop, paving the way for other artists in the genre to reach mainstream attention.

But IIB may have paved the way for West Coast hip-hop in a much more direct way than that. Those millions of dollars in publishing income signed over in a hotel room are believed by many to be the seed money for Death Row, which went on to launch the careers of hip-hop giants such as Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and 2Pac. No Ice Ice Baby, no The Chronic, no Doggystyle, no All Eyez On Me. Maybe.

As to Ice’s claim that he ‘paved the way’ for another white rapper by the name of Marshall Mathers a decade later, there are many who believe he was more hindrance than help. Ice might be better off sticking to the seed money story – after all, no Dre, no Eminem!