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. When Ice's stepfather was offered a better job in Carrollton, Texas, he moved back to Texas with his mother. 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'. Shortly afterward, Van Winkle started battle rapping at parties and because of his rhymes, his friends started calling him 'MC Vanilla'. Although he disliked the nickname, it stuck. 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. Van Winkle was affected by hip hop at an early age, saying 'It's a very big passion of mine because I love poetry. Afterward, he grew up moving between Dallas and Miami, where his new stepfather worked at a car dealership. When Van Winkle was four, his mother divorced. 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. Robert Matthew Van Winkle was born in Dallas, Texas, on October 31, 1967. After that, Ice signed to Psychopathic Records.

His latest album, WTF – Wisdom, Tenacity & Focus, was released in August 2011. In 2009, Ice began hosting The Vanilla Ice Project on DIY Network. While his later, less mainstream albums failed to chart or receive much radio airplay, Ice has had an underground following. After surviving a suicide attempt, Ice changed his musical style and lifestyle. 'Ice Ice Baby' was the first hip hop single to top the Billboard charts.Īlthough 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. 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 contained Ice's best-known hits: 'Ice Ice Baby' and a cover of 'Play That Funky Music'. Robert Matthew Van Winkle, known professionally as Vanilla Ice, is an American rapper, actor, and television host. Insane Poetry Rodney-O & Joe Cooley Insane Clown Posse Rapper, actor, record producer, singer, television host

Vanilla ice net worth