![]() ![]() For years, rap was just live party music, with MCs chattering over the breaks that their DJs put together. Hip-hop, as a form of music, had its semi-official beginning in 1973, when Kool Herc, the Jamaican-born teenage DJ, played records at a back-to-school party in the rec room of his Bronx apartment building, cutting between the percussive breaks of funk singles and accidentally birthing a whole genre. A rap song reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It might even be terrible.In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. And there isn’t a rapper around who hasn’t recorded at least one self-aggrandising track. At the same time, it’s a very modern rap track: the lyrics are all about how bad-ass, how dangerous, and how popular with the ladies Ice is. On the one hand, it seems to have set hip-hop back by a good few years. I’m still not sure how to finish and move on from ‘Ice Ice Baby’. And yet, here he stands, with only the 2 nd hip-hop #1 in British chart history (and certainly the most credible of the two so far, after ‘Turtle Power’.) ![]() He’s had a troubled time of it, with firearms charges, burglary, domestic abuse and illegal drag-racing on his rap sheet. The follow-up, a cover of ‘Play That Funky Music’, made #10 and since then he’s never bothered the Top 20. Van Winkle never matched the heights of his debut single. He’s released live versions and anniversary remixes, as well as a nu-metal version (which is better than it has any right to be…) Perhaps it was a victim of its own success, or perhaps the controversy over the ‘sample’ took the gloss off it? Vanilla Ice – whose real name is the gloriously un-gangsta Robert Van Winkle – seems simultaneously annoyed by this albatross around his neck, and unwilling to let it die. When exactly the tide turned, I’m not sure. But, at the time, was it taken seriously? It seems that it was, getting good reviews in Billboard, the NME, and Entertainment Weekly. ![]() Nowadays, for sure, ‘Ice Ice Baby’ is a punchline, bound to feature on a ‘Worst Moments of the ‘90s’ clipshow on Channel 5. Queen and David Bowie weren’t terribly convinced – they settled out of court and were given co-writing credits. And I say that it sounds ‘like’ ‘Under Pressure’, because Vanilla Ice claimed that it wasn’t a sample, and that he’d added an extra note. Away from his look at me lyrics ( If my rhyme was a drug, I’d sell it by the gram…) I’d say the moody synths and the riff that sounds suspiciously like a #1 from ten years earlier could easily form the basis of a hit single in 2023. Yet at the same time, Vanilla Ice is the worst thing about this record. ![]() And C) As for Vanilla Ice looking like a moron… Well, show me any rapper that you wouldn’t look at in the street and think seemed a bit eccentric. B) Early hip hop records do sound dated, very focused on rhyme and meter. This is far from the first ridiculous chart-topper. A) Being ridiculous isn’t necessarily a disadvantage for a record that wants to be a hit. Yes, Vanilla Ice comes across as a weapons-grade moron. Ice Ice Baby, by Vanilla Ice (his 1 st and only #1)Ĥ weeks, from 25 th November – 23 rd December 1990Īnd I get the hate. ![]()
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