Vanilla Ice bought Under Pressure?

He fell victim to mockery because he was trying to be something he absolutely wasn't. He claimed to grow up in Miami with Luke of 2 Live Crew and he didn't. He wanted to attain "street cred" and his "kid from middle-class Dallas" reality wasn't gonna cut it. That lie was uncovered by a reporter. He then tried to be "down" by bringing Flavor Flav with him to the "Arsenio Hall Show". Wonder what happened? Have a look. It's grizzly:



Hall ushered Flav off the stage and came for him...hard. He was right to do it too, though he was a bit harsh.

I get that being White and rapping at that point was harder than it is now but that's not what we (the general public) had a problem with. We had a problem with the never-ending stream of lies. If you watch the interview above, you'll watch him struggle mightily. It's fairly hard to watch but it lays bare everyone's problems with him at that point.

Ed

 

My mother's cousin went to high school with him, she said he was a colossal ass back then, too.

 

Does VH-1 still do One Hit Wonder shows?

 

You can get damages for previous three years.

 

I don't know. It's been 10 years or more since I last watched anything on that channel.

 

I see. So if the SOL is three years, and there is continuous infringement, you would view each additional day and an infringement of which you have knowledge on the day. I get it, but that's kind of odd.

 

Back in Miami in the early 90's Ice was blabbering about "growing up in Liberty City, going to highschool with Luther Campbell, and hanging out in the hood" Luther Campbell (2 Live Crew) called him out on it naming places, and said "I never went to highschool with you. Ice stood there stuttering. Campbell then let the cat out saying "you're name is Robbie Van Winkle and you're a rich kid from Dallas Texas pretending to be something you're not". That killed his street cred.

 

Yeah, I mean with a song as massive as "Ice, Ice Baby" you want to sue as soon as it becomes a hit, which Queen more or less did. In the Spirit/Led Zep dispute, Randy California's estate, at the instance of its lawyer, sued when the 2015 Rhino reissue was about to come out. No doubt he was expecting some quick settlement money, though it went to trial. Shockingly, in my view; I think it should've been dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction--though I believe venue was ultimately transferred to L.A. from Philadelphia--and for failing to state a claim. You can't copyright a chord progression, a fingerpicking style, or a "Renaissance Fair vibe," but I've been over this in the Led Zep thread already so I'll stop.

 

Wow. Didn't know about any confrontation between the two. I only knew about that reporter that outed him. Interesting...

Ed

 

It is amazing to me that Ice and Earthquake were allowed to get a dime from that tune. In other similar cases, the original writers have taken all of the proceeds. Why didn't Queen take all of Mr. Winkle's?

Ed

 

Lawsuit outcomes are uncertain, and there's likely more money to be had by taking a piece of the publishing from such a massive hit anyway. Given Brian May's vagueness, it sounds like the exact terms of the settlement are confidential, but I would guess Queen got a sizable chunk.

 

Seems like that goes against a lot of what people on both sides have said. If what Ice is saying in the clip a couple pages back is true, he ended up with most of the royalties and by buying the publishing rights, though it was later on, all of them. I imagine Queen got compensated a fair amount.

 

I'm almost certain it's not. Queen itself has already denied it too.

Ed

 

Brian May said the publishing is shared. He didn't say by how much. That typically would be subject to a confidentiality agreement.

Fun clip from four years ago where Ice claimed to own Under Pressure:

 

Thanks for the clip. FWIW, I saw that interview "live", when it happened 25+ years ago. Thought Hall was a jerk then, and still do. You don't try to boost your own profile by attacking a guest.

As for the "endless stream of lies", again, what did that amount to? Saying he knew Luke from 2-Live when really they might have just gone to the same school 5 years apart? Is that really the end of the world? Just about every rapper around back then tried to claim a "hard" or "street" image and most of the time it wasn't real. I mean, look at him. He's wearing a spangled suit, has his hair gelled up in a pompadour. Does that scream "street" to anyone? Obviously, it's as slick as product gets so was he really trying to get over? At least he wasn't posing with "gatts" and making videos in which he shoots up a nightclub with a Tommy gun.

No, the public punishment, in the form of 'hating' from Hall and many others in the media, was WAY out of proportion to his crimes, which were trivial.

As for Public Enemy, here's a quote from Chuck D, when asked about Eminem in a Commonwealthclub.org interview years back. He gives Van Winkle credit for breaking barriers:

Chuck D: "....Yes, he's (Eminem) a hard worker, one of the
most skilled cats out there, but you didn't invent being the most
brilliant white kid that rapped. Understand that the Jackie Robinson of
white kids rapping was the Beastie Boys, 3rd Bass and Vanilla Ice.

You give Vanilla Ice credit?

Chuck D: "When I saw Vanilla Ice in 1987, '88, I wanted to sign him. I
said, "Man, there's an Elvis for every situation." I'm looking at this
white kid with five black dancers behind him, just like Hammer's doing.
I'm saying, "This is a switch." But he already had somebody else's
management. I knew he was going to go through some heat, because it was
an Afro-centric era, he's gonna come out as a white kid. He had to break
down a lot of barriers. I don't like people's absence of memory. If he
sold 22 million To The Extreme cassette tapes, why are so many folks in
denial? Black folks got denial: Hammer denial. If you're seven or eight
years old, how are you gonna play like, I'm straight outta Compton.
You're seven or eight years old, you've got Vanilla Ice, Hammer, they've
got cartoons. Their video is on MTV and you're gonna act like, Nah, that
ain't real. Well, you ain't real yet, at nine."

Chuck is much more level-headed than the critics of the time were. I'm happy that Ice came through all right. He's still standing and making good money off his TV show, who knows where his old critics are?

 

I saw that clip "live" too. It was gruesome but he was only saying what most of us were already thinking by then. Winky's credibility was shot and his star was beginning to fall at that point but he was the only one who didn't know it. LOL!!

Winky's crime is that he was a fake from the word "go". Musically, he was a marketing idea and nothing more. He had/has no skill as a rapper. He wanted "street cred" so bad that he was willing to lie about...well...anything to get it. He was uncovered and never taken seriously again from an artistic standpoint.

Eminem doesn't even belong in the same paragraph as Winky. Eminem is tremendous talent and never lied about where he came from. Neither did 3rd Bass or the Beastie Boys. Winky did and it cost him the credibility he so desperately sought. It also cost him any further success as he had only one more hit and then justifiably vanished.

As for Chuck D's comment, that does nothing more state that he knew he was money...and he was...for a hot second. SBK and his management knew Winky's time was limited - hence the "rapid-fire studio album + live album + bad movie" approach. His time in the spotlight was relatively minimal but SBK and his management milked it for all they imagined it was worth.

Ed

 

It's true that Vanilla Ice's career as a big pop star was short. But it sure was sweet. He sold more than 17 million albums globally during his short time at the top. He also set records, such as the most weeks at #1 (USA) by a debut album, and the distinction of having the first rap single reach #1 on the pop charts. Pretty impressive. Also, that short career at the top was enough to (a) make him rich for life, and (b) famous for life, as 25+ years later, both you and I know who he is, but he doesn't know who you or I are.

And, while his time at the top of the music world was short, his career as a music artist hasn't been. He's released six studio albums and a live album over a 20-year period, from 1990-2011. Nor was his time as a celebrity. Ice has a TV show that is beginning its sixth season this year.

Oops, i misspelled "seventh", as episode one of season seven airs tomorrow night as a matter of fact. You should tune in and commiserate as to why all those haters who tried to kill him out of the spotlight 25 years ago failed, LOL. Heck, when's the last time anyone heard of Arsenio Hall and most of those other early-90s critics? LMAO!

As for Chuck D, like it or not, he did use Vanilla Ice in the same paragraph with Eminem, 3rd Bass (whatever happened to those guys? LOL), and the Beastie Boys, and he did credit Vanilla Ice with breaking down barriers. And since Chuck D knows a little bit more than you or I do about "credibility" in hip-hop, I'll take his word for it over yours, thanks.

 

Yeah, it's been longer than it should be but about as successful as it should have been too. No one buys "Vanilla Ice" records and hasn't in decades. He's had one successful record and the rest have flopped. It seems no matter what persona be picked up after "To the Extreme" (MC Hammer, Cypress Hill, Fred Durst), no one was interested. He was never once himself so no one was willing to bother with him musically.

I'll give him that he's managed to parlay his limited musical career into something more long-lasting. He's no idiot - that's for sure. What he'll never be able to do is be credible musically. He killed that off decades ago. As for Arsenio Hall, he really is a pioneer - the first African American talk show host to have a meaningfully successful evening talk show. As of now, he's really the only one. That's credibility. Winky has none of that and won't ever find it either.

Chuck D is wrong as far as Winky breaking down barriers. A little research reveals that Winky actually made it VERY hard for Eminem to break through. He also created a climate that killed Kid Rock's career for a short time. Jive Records refused to get behind his first record, "Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast" because of the furor surrounding Winky. I'm no Kid Rock fan but the climate created by Winky's inability to be authentic stifled most White acts from getting anywhere with Black music forms for a while.

As for credibility, Chuck D said nothing about that. He only said he knew he'd sell. He was right...in the short term. He had one record that sold well. The others? Not so much. Eminem will always be on the very short list of legendary rappers. Vanilla, as a musical artist, has all but been forgotten about...and justifiably so. No legitimate musician has ever said that Winky was any good - only that he sold a lot of records in the short term.

Ed

 

I'm not sure that's the reason. He's far from the only pop or rap star to have only one hit album, whether 'authentic' or not. People buy music they like, they, or at least the great mass of us, don't really care about their background. When someone buys a Katy Perry or Lady Ga Ga album is it because they think them wearing all kinds of bizarro makeup and costumes is her 'real self'? I'm not so sure.

Pop can be fickle, and sometimes the waves a pop artist is part of last a while, other times they crest quickly. E.g., Madonna was a dance-music artist, fortunately for her, dance music is an eternal part of pop. Sure, for about a year in 1980/1981 the "disco sucks" disparagement dragged it in the mud, but it no time at all dance pop just re-emerged under new branding. The spangled-suit pop-rap of Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer didn't last long, the "gangsta rap" tide washed it away pretty quickly, and since that's who Ice was, he went down with it - as did Hammer, Kid 'n Play, Young MC, Tone Loc, and others of the same circa 1988-1991 ilk. Everyone went down, not just Ice.

To me, Ice's longevity in making records despite not achieving anything like the same success is proof that there is/was a real artist within him, particularly since he also didn't need to make those records for the money. Must have been a powerful inner Muse that moved him. Who would have guessed it?

To me, saying someone broke down barriers *is* saying they had credibility. Comparing someone to Jackie Robinson, you don't get much more credible than that. The former is a subset of the latter, as it constitutes a real achievement in advancing the development and progress of music. Again, Chuck D knows more about those things than us, so I'll take his word for it, even over the 'research' you conducted. Statements by the likes of Eminem and Kid Rock can be easily motivated by factors such as (a) jealousy that Ice broke through before they did, (b) knowledge that because everyone else dumps on Ice they would look uncool unless they did the same, or that they could score cheap credibility points by distancing themselves from him, etc.

Chuck was there, at that time he was on the leading edge of it in every way, musically, financially, culturally, and so to me, his knowledge has to reign supreme here.

 

The man was ahead of his time. These days, if you lie non-stop, we just elect you President.

 

It is only shared in this form (Ice,Ice, Baby), if you play the original song (Under Pressure), Vanilla Ice has nothing to do with that.

 

Yeah, I mean, I don't buy for one second that Vanilla Ice has any piece of "Under Pressure."

 

Epic:

 

What a useless song from a pretty useless person. Why is this person even news-worthy? Next up, discussions on the artisty of Milli-Vanilli. Or should I say Vanilla? LOL