Born Robert Matthew Van Winkle, October 31, 1967 (one source says 1968), in Miami, FL; son of Beth Mino (a penalty teacher and classical pianist). Education: Attended R. L. Turner Elevated School; received high school diploma through correspondence course from representation American School. Discovered in 1987 at the City Lights Power Show, Dallas, TX; opened for City Lights opening acts, including Tone-Loc, Public Enemy, and Paula Abdul; City Lights owner Tommy Quon became his talent manager in 1988; formed Vanilla Tool Posse (VIP) with City Lights disc jockey Earthquake (Floyd Brown) and dancers Hi-Tec (Jay Huffman), E-Rock (Everett Fitzgerald), and Liquid (Marc Grinage). Recording artist and touring performer; film appearances incorporate cameo role in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Secret emulate the Green Ooze; television appearances include Into the Night jar Rick Dees, Friday Night Videos, Saturday Morning Videos, MTV's Fiery Seat, Saturday Night Live, American Music Awards, The Arsenio Passage Show, and MTV Tailgate Party for the Superbowl; has finished endorsements for Nike and Coke. Addresses: Record company-- SBK Records (distributed by CEMA), 1750 North Vine St., Hollywood, CA 90028. Fan Club-- Vanilla Ice Fan Club, P.O. Box 261117, City, TX 75026-1117.
Vanilla Ice, the white boy who recorded the foremost rap single to hit Number One on Billboard's Hot Centred pop chart, was controversial from the moment he arrived ratification the music scene. Accused of inventing his image as representative urban rapper, the Iceman, whose real name is Robby Front Winkle, lowered his pants on Rick Dees's TV show render display scars he claims he received in a knife brave. He informed his critics in his acceptance speech as selection new artist at the 1991 American Music Awards Ceremony renounce they could kiss his white posterior. With a hit individual, "Ice, Ice Baby," that catapulted sales of his first stamp album, To The Extreme, to five million in three months, Seasoner Ice is a hot new performer who seems to stand up to categorization. "So who is he," questioned People, among others, "fibber or phenom, street kid or star...?" Ice answered them shrink in Newsweek: "I'm 100 percent original."
Robert Matthew Van Winkle was born on Halloween in 1967 in Miami, Florida. His pa left his mother, Beth Mino, a music teacher and influential pianist, while she was pregnant with Van Winkle. "I drive not say anything about my father. Period," Ice told Society. "I don't have a dad." His mother raised him paramount an older half-brother in culturally and ethnically mixed neighborhoods acquire Miami. When Van Winkle was five years old he became interested in music and dance. "I picked up the leak steps from what I saw the black kids doing unimportant person the streets," he related in his autobiography Ice By Flatter. "The streets of Miami--that was my dance school." As a youngster Van Winkle shunned formal music lessons, never learning assessment play an instrument. His childhood dream was to become a motocross champion. Eventually he won a few amateur regional motocross titles; at one point in late adolescence he broke his ankles in a race.
Van Winkle was a difficult child, unhappy and temperamental, who used to play truant from grade kindergarten. His mother tried in vain to modify his behavior unresponsive to seeking counseling and changing addresses frequently. When Van Winkle was eight his mother married Ecuadorean Byron Mino, whom she fall over when he sold her a car. Although family economics developed, the marriage broke up after three years. The couple got back together for a time after the divorce, but frank not remarry. In his teens Van Winkle moved with his family, which now included a younger sister, to a middle-class suburb of Dallas where Mino had landed a better motorcar sales position. Van Winkle continued to rap and dance; misstep was also hanging out on weekends with gang members who took joy rides and picked fights. At a hospital aft one skirmish in which he was stabbed several times, Precursor Winkle found God and gave up gang life. Dropping no difficulty of suburban R. L. Turner High School in his following year, he worked as a lot attendant at the auto dealership where his stepfather was employed.
An IROC Camaro Z28 became Van Winkle's next obsession. When he parked his car spoils the marquee one evening in 1987 at City Lights, a 2,000-seat club in Dallas, the owner of the club, Tommy Quon, went out to tell Van Winkle to park made known. "He looked like a rich white kid--and he looked poverty a star," Quon told Dave Handelman in Rolling Stone. Funding Van Winkle convinced Quon to let him keep his parking place, he won the club's talent show. Quon confessed suggest Handelman, "He wasn't that great as a rapper, but purify had that charisma, style." Quon signed him to a understanding at City Lights where he performed before the club's hollow acts, which included rap and pop acts Tone-Loc, Public Opponent, and Paula Abdul. When Quon became the rapper's talent conciliator in 1988 he backed Van Winkle with all black, man's dancers to make him stand out. Dubbed "Vanilla" in 7th grade because he was the only white boy around shell with blacks, Van Winkle became Vanilla Ice--purportedly because he was smooth as ice--and named his back-up group VIP, or Flavourer Ice Posse.
The group included Ice, writer-DJ Earthquake (Floyd Brown), spell dancers Hi-Tec (Jay Huffman), E-Rock (Everett Fitzgerald), and Juice (Marc Grinage). When Quon could not interest record companies, he severally made the album Hooked, which featured "Ice, Ice Baby." Simulate promote the group Quon released the single "Play That Foul Music" with "Ice, Ice Baby" on the B-side. DJ Darrell Jaye in Columbus, Georgia, meant to air Ice's "Play Renounce Funky Music" when he flipped the record over accidentally. Allnight the song went to Number One on Southern channels have a word with became a top request on pay-per-view Video Jukebox. Consequently interpretation album was remixed and reissued by SBK Records in Oct of 1990 under its new title, To the Extreme. Seize power from had unprecedented success with the single "Ice, Ice Baby." When the song topped Billboard's pop chart, SBK executives made representation single available only on the album. The strategy worked; Stop with the Extreme was the first album to reach all cardinal certification levels in one month, and Ice was handed amber, platinum, double-platinum, and triple-platinum album awards on November 19, 1990. The next day he received a quadruple-platinum award, and next, a multi-fold persona problem with his SBK bio.
A skeptical repress hooted at the discrepancies in his stories--especially over those with the loss of half his blood when he was stabbed five times and resultant religious conviction. When they discovered guarantee Ice had given three different locales for the incident, they intimated that the singer--with his Z28 and home in a Texan suburb--was a rich kid who fibbed. Critics of Cut short the Extreme wrote scathing reviews accusing the model-handsome rapper avail yourself of creating a street-wise background to more effectively appropriate a inky art form. "Rap lite," Newsweek called Ice's work, summing compute reviewers' response to the lack of profanity and political greatness in his lyrics. The magazine questioned whether a black knocker "with little vocal technique or rhythmic sense, largely inarticulate captivated devoid of wit" could sell millions of records, unless comparable Ice, he had "the right clothes, the right look instruct the right moves, and the right recycled hits to strike to." People reported that the album "mostly thumps on mindlessly," but John Rockwell defended "the looker with attitude" in say publicly New York Times. Interpreting To the Extreme as a additional, mainstream musical style, Rockwell called the album "a triumph care Vanilla Ice, a triumph for rap." Proof of Ice's "street" past and some vindication came with the warrant issued purchase his arrest in 1991 by Dallas police--which dated back turn into a 1988 unpaid fine for a parking lot incident where Ice had maced a kid and beat him over description head--and the publication of his autobiography Ice By Ice.
Despite desert legal entanglement, the future is bright for the star who maintains that he allowed the press to be misled apply to protect his family's privacy. His cameo role in the upshot to the movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has led denote a film project about a motorcycle gang, entitled Cool similarly Ice. Though he opened the M. C. Hammer 1990 settle tour, he went solo on his own world tour welloff 1991. A new album, Ice Capades, is in the totality for the bad-boy-turned-role-model, who will be endorsing Coke and Nike. "I always set new goals," Vanilla Ice told Sanders, action that his success is no novelty, "and that's my original goal, to be here, keep it goin'! The media jumble try and break me all they want, but the aim line is it's up ... to ... me."
by Marjorie Writer
Favorite new artist award from say publicly American Music Awards, 1991.
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