Rapper’s rise and fall is the stuff of legend

Kirk Baird

Thursday, Nov. 2, 2000 | 9:20 a.m.

Vanilla Ice in Future Farmers of America?

It seemed too good to be true.

But in 1991 some college buddies of this reporter had the goods on Mr. Ice, who performs Friday at Mandalay Bay's House of Blues, long before the media exposed the truth behind his larger-than-life image.

It seemed Vanilla Ice (real name Robbie Van Winkle) attended Paris High School in Paris, Texas, as a freshman and was a member of Future Farmers of America. And they had the yearbook to prove it.

After much discussion over many beers, said buddies produced the yearbook and there, in all his early-'80s glory, was Van Winkle.

One look at his face and there was no denying it was him.

So for nine years the secret's been stowed away, waiting to see the light of day.

Despite all the coverage of Van Winkle's life -- in newspaper articles and a VH1 "Behind the Music" episode -- there was no mention of his life in Paris, no mention of his goal of being a farmer.

Perhaps in Vanilla Ice's heyday, this would seem somehow revelatory. Now it seems anticlimactic.

His response didn't help either. Rather than denying his days as a Future Farmer, he embraced it, laughing at the notion of his freshman experience in a small East Texas town.

"I have no shame," said Van Winkle, as he prefers to be called, in a recent phone interview from a Dallas recording studio. "My grandmother and my aunt live there (in Paris). I go there every year for Thanksgiving."

But Future Farmers of America?

"Totally," he said. "And you know what's cool? I've got this new song on my new record called 'Redneck.' (Breaking into rap) 'I'm bound to be a redneck, I'm in the industry/I'm a redneck, now why you looking at me?' "

Which begs the question: "How can this white kid from nowhere come out and do this and sell 17 million records?" he asked. "Well, what gives anybody any credit to do anything they do? Do you have to be from somewhere special to be a rapper? No. You can be from anywhere."

The odyssey

The story of Van Winkle reads like such a classic Greek myth, so full of archetypes even Homer would have a difficult time topping it.

Like many Greek heroes, the 32-year-old Van Winkle rose from virtual obscurity to achieve notoriety. In his case, it was from a middle-class existence in Dallas where he would take the rap- and pop worlds by storm in the early '90s.

First, however, he started breakdancing as a teen. Over time he found himself in various clubs, where he picked up on a new musical phenonmena taking hold: rap.

After releasing his first record, "Hooked," in 1989 on an underground label, it didn't take long for the industry to knock at his door.

A year later Van Winkle made his major-label debut on now-defunct SBK Records. Nobody could have predicted what happened next.

"To the Extreme" sold millions, courtesy of the painfully addictive single "Ice, Ice Baby," its bass line lifted straight from the Queen-David Bowie collaboration "Under Pressure." The accompanying video was in heavy rotation at MTV, and Van Winkle's face seemed to grace most every magazine aimed at the under-20 crowd.

He was a bona fide star.

With this celebrity status, however, came all the accompanying temptations, such as greed and avarice.

It was simply a matter of watching Newton's law -- what goes up must come down -- in action.

For Van Winkle, it didn't take long.

His live follow-up record, "Extremely Live," failed to score the same level of success as "To the Extreme," only going gold and not reaching platinum. And his burgeoning movie career, courtesy of 1991's "Cool as Ice," -- featuring his immortal line, "Drop the zero, get with the hero" -- thankfully went the way of his musical profession.

From there it wasn't too long until he attained punch-line status, a poster boy for all that was wrong with the music industry.

To most, it appeared his career was over. And it almost was, literally, when in 1994 Van Winkle attempted suicide.

But he survived.

And like the Greek tragedies, it's a mournful protagonist left standing at the end, wiser of the world and contemplative of his past.

"Money is not what it's all about," Van Winkle said. "And I really at that time thought it was. It was winning the lottery for me. I was broke as hell one day and a millionaire the next.

"I didn't realize until later in life, when I had $18 million in the bank in '94, that as a result of this I was turned into a laughingstock."

The jokes, however, are now on others, he contends. No longer worried about selling records, Van Winkle these days seems liberated, his new identity far removed from his teen-friendly rapper days.

For example, his last album, "Hard to Swallow."

Musically the record is pure hybrid -- a rap-rock fusion Van Winkle likens to that of a symphony, in that it's several differing styles joined together to form a cohesive whole.

Lyrically, Van Winkle referred to the disc as his diary, as it contains raw emotions unleashed from someone who's been through just about everything and survived. The result of which is an at times angry, at times sad and always reflective persona that is, he said, the actual Van Winkle -- both on and off stage.

As he said numerous times, "I'm just keepin' it real."

And now others are taking notice.

For his as-yet-complete album, "Skabz," which he hopes to release in the spring (he's currently shopping it around various labels looking for the best deal), several guests artists joined Van Winkle in the studio.

Among them, Lenny Kravitz and Public Enemy's Chuck D, (two longtime friends, Van Winkle said), and Shaggy 2 Dope (Joey Ulster) and Violent J (Joseph Bruce) of Insane Clown Posse.

A diverse and popular group, sure, but it was never Van Winkle's intention to use their services.

"I was just going to make my record. A few people, my friends, like Lenny, and some other people, through the VH1 special, saw what I was doing and they embraced it," he said. "They contacted me, in a weird way."

Ice Man returneth

Van Winkle said of the 350 club- and small-arena shows he's performed since October '98, nearly 98 percent have sold out.

His new audience, now mainly in its mid-to-late teenage years, white and male (what he refers to as "the body-piercing, tattoo" crowd), doesn't care about his days as Vanilla Ice the rap star, he said.

"They just want to hear what I'm doing now," Van Winkle said. "I'm not targeting them but they appreciate what I'm doing, so I'm going to cater to them."

He's also not willing to drop the moniker Vanilla Ice in the process.

"I didn't change my name because I want people to know I faced my adversity," he said. "I'm not trying to run or hide from anything; I'm just being myself."

Which, at this time, is a good thing, he admits.

A longtime resident of Florida, these days Van Winkle seems happy, especially when discussing his role as family man to a wife and two young daughters, whom he refers to as "his ultimate goal."

Then there's the fact he recently reunited with longtime manager Tommy Quon, who handled Ice during his rise to fame. The two had parted ways over money, but Van Winkle said that resolved itself after a phone conversation spurred on by a friend.

Quon said he believes Van Winkle will continue to find an audience for his new music and that his popularity is only going to increase. Van Winkle, though he repeatedly said he no longer cares about record sales or how many fans he has, welcomes the return of Quon as manager.

"I think it was a great move," he said. "Things happen for a reason; I'm waiting to see what that reason is."

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