The Glorious Rise and Fast Fall of 1989/1990 Music Stars Milli Vanilli, Vanilla Ice, and MC Hammer
Then and now
I’m a Xennial, of the “micro-generation” born between 1977 and 1983 and have a fondness for swatches, neon color changing shirts, crimped hair, and Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. The three musicians below are icons of the xennial generation.
The common thread of all three stories is a quick rise to fame and a disastrous falling out of favor. One story ends in death. Another story ends with a home improvement show. The last story ends with a rap star becoming a reality TV star and ordained preacher.
Pull your hair back in a side-pony, check the time on your swatch, and travel with me back to 1989 and 1990.
Milli Vanilli | “Blame It On The Rain”
Milli Vanilli — duo Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus — released their first album, Girl You Know It’s True, in March of 1989 and shot to the top of the music charts. They even won a Grammy for this album. In July 1989, their lip syncing was revealed during a live broadcast on MTV in which the recording skipped. They tried to keep up the act but when they realized they were busted, Milli Vanilli fled from the stage. In a 2019 People Milli Vannili scandal article, Brianne Tracy quotes Rob Pilatus addressing their lie in 1990:
We are just two human guys who were so hungry for success that we allowed ourselves to be manipulated. We wanted to get on the top. We apologize and hope they’ll give us a second chance.
In 1993, they gave singing a shot with an album released by “Rob & Fab.” It was unsuccessful. Pilatus turned to drugs and was in and out of rehab for several years, in which he also attempted suicide. In 1998, at the age of 32, he was found dead in a hotel in Germany. It’s suspected that the cause was an alcohol and drug overdose.
In 2003, Rob Morvan put out a solo album called Love Revolution.
“I want ‘Milli Vanilli’ to mean when you fall, you stand up and go forward,” Morvan said in 2010. “And no one can take that away from you.” —People
By December 1989, Charles Shaw, revealed he was one of the three “real” vocalists on the album. Record producer, Frank Farian was the mastermind behind the stunt. The duo was the first musical group forced to return their Grammy. Their record label dropped them. Their rising career crashed and burned within a year.
Rewatching this video, I can see why I had a killer crush on this duo when I was about ten-years-old. Sure, I was disappointed they lip synced. I also kept listening to “their music and staring at my cassette cover while repeatedly listening to their songs. Yup. Watch the video for a trip back to the almost-90s.
Who wants to blame a breakup on themselves? Just blame it on the rain.
(Blame it on the rain) that was fallin’ fallin’… (Blame it on the stars) that did shine at night… Whatever you do don’t put the blame on you… Blame it on the rain… (yeah yeah) You can blame it on the rain… — Writers, Eric Kaz and Tom Snow
Vanilla Ice | “Ice Ice Baby”
Jeff Weiss of The Ringer catches us up with musician and entrepreneur Vanilla Ice, aka Robert Van Winkle, who was discovered in an all-black dance club in Dallas in the late 1980s. Van Winkle had moves that shocked everyone, especially for a white guy in the 1980s and early 1990s. During his rise, Vanilla Ice was criticized for saying he was from Florida when he was actually from the Dallas suburbs, which was a big undermining detail in the rap community at the time. DJ Floyd “Earthquake” Brown discovered him at the club:
“I noticed this white guy dancing in the crowd,” Brown says. “City Lights was all Black, so at first I was like, ‘What does he think he’s doing?’ He could dance his ass off, and we’d never seen a white guy do that. The women was loving it and getting all up on him like, ‘Oooh, look at him.’ And he was like, ‘I’m not finna stop. I’m gonna make y’all love me.”
Van Winkle released his debut album To the Extreme in 1990, selling 15 million copies worldwide. His single, “Ice Ice Baby” quickly rose to the top of Billboard Hot 100 and secured a place for rap in the popular music played on the radio at the time. At 23-years-old, Van Winkle was enjoying a huge moment in the limelight, with merchandising galore, and some “hip hop purists” infuriated with the white solo rapper, accusing him of inauthenticity and cultural appropriation.
He was also criticized for heavily sampling the baseline from Queen’s and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure.”
Of the three stories listed here, Van Winkle seems to have come out most on top:
He shrewdly invested his “Ice Ice Baby” money, parlayed it into a fortune flipping real estate, and capitalized on that via The Vanilla Ice Project, a reality show that has aired for nine seasons on the DIY Network and turned him into hip-hop’s Bob Vila. — Jeff Weiss
Although I didn’t have a crush on Vanilla Ice — a little too much of a caricature for me, I think — I did sing along to his catchy song.
Van Winkle invested his money wisely, lives in a mansion, and has been starring in a home improvement television show on the DIY network since 2010.
“All right stop, collaborate, and listen. Ice is back with my brand new invention Something grabs a hold of me tightly Flow like a harpoon daily and nightly Will it ever stop? Yo, I don’t know Turn off the lights and I’ll glow To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle.”
MC Hammer | “U Can’t Touch This”
Re-watching MC Hammer, I appreciate him more than I did in the 1990s. His hip hop dance moves are pretty awesome.
Stanley Kirk Burrell was born in Oakland in 1962. As a young adult he was a bat boy for the Oakland A’s. He entertained the crowds with dance moves and eventually earned the nickname “Hammer” after Hank Aaron, who they said he resembles. He worked shows around town as “Master of Ceremonies” and MC Hammer was born.
His rise to the top was fast and his fall, perhaps faster. He popularized “hammer pants,” a balloon-baggy style of fashion wear I don’t remember owning.
“You can move in ’em. You can dance in ’em … and it gives you freedom of movement. It’s a slight delay. You move, and then the pants move, so it brings a nice little flair.” — MC Hammer
MC Hammer won a bunch of music awards, engaged in a lascivious lifestyle, and filed bankruptcy in 1996. Hammer was criticized for heavily sampling from other musical artists, “[“U Can’t Touch This”] was the second-best song ever to consist mostly of Rick James’s unstoppable “Super Freak” bassline — the first being “Super Freak” itself, of course.” — Genius.com
His net worth is currently 1.7 million. Sounds like a bounce-back from bankruptcy to me. In 2009 he starred in reality TV show, Hammertime and in 2003 participated in The Surreal Life.
He returned to his religious family roots and became an ordained minister.
This is my favorite of all three videos posted here. The neon colors scream the 90s. The video is slightly scandalous because of the half-clad ladies thirty years ago. It’d be considered modest by today’s standards.
The dancing is worth watching — hip hop, breakdancing, moonwalking — a little bit of everything. Plus, hammer pants. Don’t know what hammer pants are? Watch the video. You’ll see.
“Go with the flow, it is said That if you can’t groove to this then you probably are dead So wave yo hands in the air Bust a few moves, run your fingers through your hair This is it, for a winner Dance to this and you’re gonna get thinner Move, slide your rump Just for a minute let’s all do the bump (Bump, bump, bump)” — Writer(s): M C Hammer, Rick James, Alonzo H Miller
Conclusion
Milli Vanilli reinforced the lesson that lying will come back to bite us in the butt. Just don’t do it. They also taught us to learn from our mistakes and move forward. The untimely death of Pilatus is certainly a warning about the pitfalls of fame and fortune while Morvan has managed to move forward, learning from past mistakes.
Robert Van Winkle teaches us to be wise with should we find fame and fortune. Instead of letting his ego become permanently wounded by harsh criticism of his music career, he invested wisely and pivoted to other endeavors, in which he has found much success. It’s true that we often learn more from failure than from success. Robert Van Winkle proves this point.
MC Hammer is an example of someone hitting bottom and then finding a way to rise back up. We can take inspiration from his crash-and-burn career, crash-and-burn money and his ability to remake his net worth into a not-shoddy 2 million dollars.
If you don’t take anything else away, enjoy the trip back to 1989/1990 and dance around your living room. It’ll lift your spirits.
Postscript added January 7, 2021.
Text Message From my Mom:
I read your article about Milli Vanilli, etc. That brought back a lot of memories. You were really disillusioned about them after that. I had bought you their tape for your birthday I think, and you threw it away! Gosh, you played their music over and over. Even I liked their music!
Me:
Haha! I don’t remember that. I’ll add a postscript.