1990 Vanilla Ice: Ice Ice Baby

Perennial whipping boy of white faced rap, Vanilla Ice and his theme song come pre-loaded with such weight of critical bile and ridicule that you wonder how it ever dares to show its face in public anymore, even ironically. Not since those St Winifred's girls sang about their Grandma has a song been such the focus of a united and definitive front of 'THIS IS SHIT' criticism that dares rather than invites contradiction. To be fair, a white guy hi-jacking a black medium in such an outrageous and overwhelming manner (his 'To The Extreme' album sold over 11 million copies worldwide) was tailor made to knock noses out of joint, but since the acceptance of Eminem, the whole 'look at the white guy rapping' novelty has faded enormously, not least through the fact that Eminem does (did?) it so well. Maybe time then to pause and re-evaluate his forerunner's input into the genre.

What always appeals to me most about rap is the machine gun delivery of a good rhyme, the free flow of words that, from the mouth of the best artists, tumble and spark against each other like the notes of a John Coltrane riff. On this point, 'Ice Ice Baby' falls at the first. True it has words aplenty over its whole four minutes but they've no direction home - with all the spark of a wet match they file by in a series of crude cut and paste images of supposed self aggrandisement so vague in their slung-togetherness ("Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle, bum rush the speaker that booms. I'm killing your brain like a poisonous mushroom") they could double as self put-downs. And to add injury to their insult, they're not delivered that well either - rather than rap, Ice instead talks quickly and in a voice with no inherent rhythm or passion that uses the 'Under Pressure' bassline as a metronomic clicktrack to keep it all staid. And yes, that sample DOES grab the attention early in its audacity but then soon lets go when nothing more is done with it until it becomes a crutch that withers and snaps.*

There's 'Yo' this and 'yo' that, DJ's to the left and gunshots to the right but it's all pose with no substance - 'Vanilla' is apt; this is to rap what Pat Boone's 'Long Tall Sally' was to Little Richard's original; a one time wild dog with its balls cut off only this time I don't hear the influence of a conservative establishment engineering a response to damp down the wilder excesses of der yoof or even a cheapjack cash in on black culture. No, on 'Ice Ice Baby' Vanilla is a genuine fan doing his best. The problem is it's just not good enough, but it's hardly his fault that 11 million people thought otherwise.

* Compare this with 'A Tribe Called Quest's 'Can I Kick It' that used Lou Reed's 'Walk On The Wild Side' bassline as a similar launch pad but then cut it free once orbit was achieved.