CHAT.MD

Van Winkle's success also brought problems. "Ice Ice Baby" sampled the 1981 Queen and David Bowie collaboration "Under Pressure" without permission, and a lawsuit followed. Members of the national black fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha accused Van Winkle of using the fraternity's chant "Ice ice baby, too cold, too cold," without credit or permission. Although initially writing in his original biography, "Ice Baby is a chant that's done by the Alpha fraternity. I flipped the Vanilla in front of it and thought, '"That's cool,'" Van Winkle later denied knowing of Alpha Phi Alpha. Van Winkle recorded a version of the funk-disco classic "Play That Funky Music", a major hit for Wild Cherry in 1976; however, Wild Cherry singer-guitarist Rob Parissi alleged that he was not credited as the writer of Van Winkle's version of the song. His flamboyant stage outfits and over-stylized grooming inspired an imitative fad, but eventually led to great ridicule.

However, the most damning revelation occurred when it was disclosed that Van Winkle has lied about his upbringing. In an attempt to bolster his "street credibility", Van Winkle claimed that he had attended a predominantly black high school in Miami, Florida and had led a crime-riddled life, rather than growing up in a stable, upper-middle-class family.These facts first earned notoriety when student-reporters at Miami Palmetto Senior High School, a suburban and mostly white high school in Miami, attempted to locate Van Winkle in the local district records, in the process determining Vanilla Ice's real name and background. His deception was widely condemned, particularly in the hip hop community, and Van Winkle could not shake the perception that he embodied the white mainstream's commercial appropriation and dilution of traditionally Black music. The backlash all but turned Van Winkle into a pariah.

Van Winkle has been mocked in other rappers' lyrics, most notably by the later (and massively more successful) white rap artist Eminem, but perhaps the most famous contemporary critique was 3rd Bass' song "Pop Goes the Weasel".Its music video featured punk rock singer Henry Rollins, dressed like Van Winkle, being assaulted by the members of the group. The African-American sketch comedy In Living Color also mocked Vanilla Ice with a sketch where the rapper was portrayed (by Jim Carrey) as a bumbling phoney, the backup chorus singing "He's so white-white baby!". Both Chris Rock's character Nat X from Saturday Night Live and rapper Ice-T in an interview with Rolling Stone wondered if the rough-and-tumble "street" that Ice claimed to hail from was in fact Sesame Street.

Van Winkle also, around this time, appeared in Madonna's Sex book.