Vanilla Ice and Color Me Badd

Born Robert Van Winkle, Vanilla Ice has built up a reputation as a rapper, actor, and television host. He hails from Dallas Texas but resided in Florida. It was after signing a record deal with a division EMI called SBK Records that he released “To the Extreme” which broke the record of being the first hip-hop single that topped the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. It also broke the record of being the fastest selling hip-hop album of all time, maintaining the top spot for a total of sixteen weeks. It has since gone Platinum in the UK and 7x Platinum in the US, and 6x Platinum in Canada. On the album featured the song “Ice Ice Baby” which went to number 1 in four countries, and achieved Platinum certification in US, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. There was also the song “Play That Funky Music” which didn’t quite match the success of its predecessor, but it still made it into the top 20 of six charts internationally.

“Extremely Live” followed the release of this album on March 6th 1991, which made it to number 30 in the US and 35 in the UK, being certified Gold in Canada and the US. Despite the outstanding global success of “To the Extreme”, Vanilla Ice didn’t match the success of that album with any of his following five full-length album releases. Fortunately his song “Ice Ice Baby” has featured on many compilation albums since, and on Jedward’s cover of the song where Vanilla Ice featured on the song himself. The song made it to number 2 in the UK Chart.

It might surprise you to know that even Color Me Badd, an outfit that on the surface seem utterly tailor made, actually formed naturally. The original line-up of Bryan Abrams, Sam Watters, Mark Calderon and Kevin “K.T” Thornton met while singing in the same church choir in Oklahoma. They formed a band together just before high school after discovering their similar tastes in music and spent their high school years singing together, building a reputation with their doo-wop style harmonies. One of their early champions was Robert Bell of Kool and the Gang, who saw the groups potential and signed them up with a manager that he knew personally. This manager relocated the group to New York City, New York but found that in the big city, they were one of many, many acts trying to make a name for themselves.

After a year and a half’s worth of concerts and label showcases, the band signed to Giant Records in 1990. The band debuted in 1991 with the release of their debut single “I Wanna Sex You Up”, which came out on the soundtrack of a crime film called New Jack City and made a name for the group immediately. In time, the song became an astonishing hit, reaching number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and staying there for four weeks. It was also huge in the U.K and New Zealand, marking an international breakthrough for the band as well. July 1991 saw the release of their debut album “C.M.B” which spent a total of 77 weeks on the Billboard 200, selling a million copies in its first two months of release.

The band spent the years of 1991 and 1992 as one of the biggest names in pop music but it wasn’t to last. The band stayed at a more manageable level of fame for the rest of the decade, occasionally scoring top twenty hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and releasing albums that got far more critical acclaim than they ever did at their commercial peak. However they still weren’t selling, and after the commercial failure of 1998’s “Awakening”, the band split in 2000. However, Abrams and Calderon revived the band as a duo in 2010, and were soon able to convince Thornton back into the fold as well, they’ve been touring ever since, and they still come highly recommended.