#97

Vanilla Ice

Ice, Ice Baby

To The Extreme (1990)





Much like my pick from last week, this week’s is pick is very polarizing. I’ll admit it love the song Ice Ice Baby, even though most people hate it and the performer that performs it. From the moment I first heard this song it captured something within me.

Ice Ice Baby is very appropriate, as it popped in my head while I took Olivia out to the park on President’s day and we broke out the sled. And more snow was in the forecast. Perhaps this pick should have been Informer by Snow. Anyways.

Ding Ding Ding Dee Dee Ding Ding. Every time I hear that opening tune, I hope its Ice Ice Baby, but it’s usually Under Pressure by Queen, where the beat was stolen from and is a pretty great song in its own right. I don’t buy that there is an extra ding somewhere in there to make it different. But I digress.

During an era when rap was about being hard and dangerous, this song is about being a Guido in Miami, which in itself was welcoming. “Rolling in my five point oh, with the roof put down so my hair can blow” Ok the worst thing that this song did was give a terrible haircut to Guido’s everywhere. The song was about having a good time, not shooting up some guys wearing a different color hat than you are wearing.

Seriously how can you not love a song that has this lone “cooking MCs like a pound of bacon”.

I remember buying the tape of To The Extreme at Sears while in high school. It somehow lasted though college, where I used to play it in a radio that we had in the newspaper office. The tape was stolen, because some people were not ready for a return of Vanilla Ice. Even today 20 years later when I hear Ice Ice Baby, I smile. And sing along.

“Yo word to your mother!”