Vanilla Ice

Robert Matthew Van Winkle (born October 31, 1967), known professionally as Vanilla Ice, is an American rapper, actor, and television host.

Robert Matthew Van Winkle was born in Dallas, Texas, on October 31, 1967.

Van Winkle has never known his biological father; he was given the family name of the man his mother was married to at the time of his birth.

When Van Winkle was four, his mother divorced.

Afterward, he grew up moving between Dallas and Miami, where his new stepfather worked at a car dealership.

Van Winkle was affected by hip hop at an early age, saying "It's a very big passion of mine because I love poetry. I was just heavily influenced by that whole movement and it's molded me into who I am today."

Between the ages of 13 and 14, Van Winkle practiced breakdancing, which led to his friends nicknaming him "Vanilla", as he was the only one in the group who was not black.

Although he disliked the nickname, it stuck.

Shortly afterward, Van Winkle started battle rapping at parties and because of his rhymes, his friends started calling him "MC Vanilla".

However, when he became a member of a breakdance troupe, Van Winkle's stage name was "Vanilla Ice" combining his nickname "Vanilla" with one of his breakdance moves, "The Ice".

When Ice's stepfather was offered a better job in Carrollton, Texas, he moved back to Texas with his mother.

When Ice was not learning to ride motorbikes, he was dancing as a street performer with his breakdancing group, now called The Vanilla Ice Posse.

Ice wrote "Ice Ice Baby" at the age of 16, basing its lyrics on a weekend he had with friend and disc jockey D-Shay in South Florida.

The lyrics describe Ice and Shay on a drug run that ends in a drive-by shooting while praising Ice's rhyming skills.

He attended R. L. Turner High School.

In 1985, he was focusing all of his energy on motocross, winning three championships.

After breaking his ankle during a race, Ice was not interested in racing professionally for some time, using his spare time to perfect his dance moves and creating his own while his ankle was healing.

Ice used his beatboxing and breakdancing skills as a street performer with his friends at local malls during this time.

One evening he visited City Lights, a South Dallas nightclub, where he was dared to go on stage by his friend Squirrel during an open-mic.

He won the crowd over and was asked by City Lights manager John Bush if he wanted to perform regularly, which he accepted.

Ice would be joined on stage by his disc jockeys D-Shay and Zero, as well as Earthquake, the local disc jockey at City Lights.

The Vanilla Ice Posse or The V.I.P. would also perform with Ice on stage.

As a performer for City Lights, Ice opened up for N.W.A, Public Enemy, The D.O.C., Tone Lōc, 2 Live Crew, Paula Abdul, Sinbad and MC Hammer.

In January 1987, Ice was stabbed five times during a scuffle outside of City Lights.

After spending ten days in the hospital, Ice signed a contract with the owner of City Lights, Tommy Quon, and his management company, Ultrax.

Two years later, Ice would open for EPMD, Ice-T, Stetsasonic, and Sir Mix-a-Lot on the Stop the Violence Tour.

Quon saw commercial potential in Ice's rapping and dancing skills.

Buying studio time with Quon's earnings from City Lights, they recorded songs that had been perfected on stage by Ice and his acquaintances with various producers, including Khayree.

Born in South Dallas, and raised in Texas and South Florida, Ice released his debut album, Hooked, in 1989 on Ichiban Records, before signing a contract with SBK Records, a record label of the EMI Group, which released a reformatted version of the album in 1990 under the title To the Extreme; which became the fastest-selling hip hop album of all time and contained Ice's best-known hits: "Ice Ice Baby" and a cover of "Play That Funky Music".

"Ice Ice Baby" was the first hip hop single to top the Billboard charts and has been credited with helping to diversify hip hop by introducing it to a mainstream audience.

Although he was successful, Ice later regretted his business arrangements with SBK, which had paid him to adopt a more commercial appearance to appeal to a mass audience and published fabricated biographical information without his knowledge.

Soundtrack appearances and a live album, Extremely Live, continued the success, but a second mainstream studio album, Mind Blowin', featured an image change that saw a massive drop in popularity for Ice, and his subsequent albums, Hard to Swallow, Bi-Polar and Platinum Underground, failed to chart or receive much radio airplay.

The two year production was distributed by an independent record company called Ichiban Records in 1989.

"Play That Funky Music" was released as the album's first single, with "Ice Ice Baby" appearing as the B-side.

Tommy Quon personally sent out the single to various radio stations around the US, but the single was seldom played and when it was, it did not get the reaction Quon was hoping for.

When disc jockey Darrell Jaye in Georgia played "Ice Ice Baby" instead of the single's A-side, the song gained a quick fanbase and other radio stations followed suit.

Quon financed $8,000 for the production of a music video for "Ice Ice Baby", which received heavy airplay by The Box, increasing public interest in the song.

Following the success of "Ice Ice Baby", record producer Suge Knight and two bodyguards arrived at The Palm in West Hollywood, where Ice was eating.

After shoving Ice's bodyguards aside, Knight and his own bodyguards sat down in front of Ice, staring at him before finally asking "How you doin'?"

In 2009, Ice began hosting The Vanilla Ice Project on DIY Network.