Once upon a time, John Deacon thumped out a few bass lines for Queen and David Bowie. Not quite 10 years later, a guy from Dallas with a haircut of staggering angles found himself with $18 million, kicking the sand with his toes while strolling down Miami Beach naked with Madonna.

There's more to this story, which involves shiny long-sleeved pant suits, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, buckets of cold water, a yellow motorcycle, a harvest of explicit language, severe "Ice Ice Baby" videotape abuse via baseball bat, the cops and celebrity boxing. But honestly, even though this website has unlimited space, it's probably best to skip it.

Vanilla Ice today isn't the shiny long-sleeved pant suits Vanilla Ice of 1990's To the Extreme. "I will never be a puppet for the industry again," he writes on his website. "From this point on I will keep it real. That's why I didn't change the name. It doesn't mean anything; it's only a label. It's not important, plus I am not running from anything or trying to hide."

Ice calls his music now, "metal molten hip hop." The sound is rough, the look is rough, the language is rough. He still tours the U.S., Europe and Asia, still on his CD cover looks like he woke up angry. But according to Ice, these days his family, his non-puppeteered music and Motocross have for the first time kept him happy and walking the straight and narrow.

From staff reports.

Musicians

• Vanilla Ice: lead vocals, vocals

Albums

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