Artist/Group: Vanilla Ice
Album: To the Extreme
Released: 1990
Label: SBK/EMI

Watch the Official Video of this song    • Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby (Official ...  

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"Ice Ice Baby" is a hip hop song by American rapper Vanilla Ice, and DJ Earthquake. It was based on the bassline of "Under Pressure" by British band Queen and British singer David Bowie, who did not receive songwriting credit or royalties until after it had become a hit. Released on his debut album, To the Extreme, it is his best known song. It has appeared in remixed form on Platinum Underground and Vanilla Ice Is Back! A live version appears on the album Extremely Live, while a nu metal version appears on the album Hard to Swallow, under the title "Too Cold".

"Ice Ice Baby" was first released as the B-side to Vanilla Ice's cover of "Play That Funky Music", but the single was not initially successful. When disc jockey David Morales played "Ice Ice Baby" instead, it began to gain success. "Ice Ice Baby" was the first hip hop single to top the Billboard Hot 100. Outside of the United States, "Ice Ice Baby" topped the charts in Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom, thus helping the song diversify hip hop by introducing it to a mainstream audience.

Robert Van Winkle, better known by his stage name Vanilla Ice, wrote "Ice Ice Baby" in 1983 at the age of 16, basing its lyrics upon his experiences in South Florida. The lyrics describe a shooting and Van Winkle's rhyming skills. The chorus of "Ice Ice Baby" originates from the signature chant of the national African American fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha. Of the song's lyrics, Van Winkle stated in a 2001 interview that "If you released 'Ice Ice Baby' today, it would fit in today's lyrical respect among peers, you know what I'm sayin'? My lyrics aren't, 'Pump it up, go! Go!' At least I'm sayin' somethin'."

Further information: List of songs subject to plagiarism disputes
The song's hook samples the bassline of the 1981 song "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie, who did not receive credit or royalties for the sample. In a 1990 interview, Van Winkle claimed the two melodies were slightly different because he had added an additional note on the "and" of the fourth beat, an anacrusis ("pickup") between odd-numbered and subsequent even-numbered iterations of the "Under Pressure" sample. In later interviews, Van Winkle readily admitted he sampled the song and claimed his 1990 statement was a joke; others, however, suggested he had been serious. After representatives for Queen and Bowie threatened a copyright infringement suit against him, the matter was settled out of court, with Van Winkle being required to pay financial recompense to the original artists. Bowie and all members of Queen were also given songwriting credit for the sample.

In December 1990, Van Winkle told British youth music magazine Smash Hits where he came up with the idea of sampling "Under Pressure":

The way I do stuff is to go through old records that my brother has. He used to listen to rock 'n' roll and stuff like that. I listened to funk and hip hop because rock wasn't really my era. But having a brother like that, well, I just mixed the two, and he had a copy of 'Under Pressure'. And putting those sounds to hip hop was great.

— Robert Van Winkle, Smash Hits
Van Winkle described himself as the first rapper to cross into the pop market and said that although his pioneer status forced him to "take the heat for a lot of people" for his music's use of samples, the criticism he received over sample use allowed sampling to become acceptable in mainstream hip hop.

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