Saturday 17 April 2021

TOTP Billin'

Nowadays my main Friday night ritual is watching BBC4's re-runs of old Top Of The Pops episodes, and two hall of fame Pop-Rap classix were performed on last night's 1990 shows. And I do mean performed because this was the era when Top Of The Pops began insisting that artists played live in a bid to make the show more credible/as a sneaky ploy to stop Rave acts with songs extolling drug use appearing on TV. If you were in high school or up in clubs when Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby and Dream Warriors' My Definition Of A Boombastic Jazz Style first dropped you loved both songs and you either lyin' or you were listening to Timmy Mallet if you claim otherwise.




On the evidence of the Ice Ice Baby clip, Vanilla Ice was a far better live performer than many of the G.O.A.T's including Rakim and Nas. Get yourself a Rapper who can dance and rhyme at the Same Damn Time!™

12 comments:

noah said...

The man came up battling Willie D in Houston. He earned it. That’s a cold fact,

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

I didn't know that. Vanilla Ice: officially more credible than Melle Mel?

Anonymous said...

Yep-yep! "Ice Ice Baby" was cool in 1990. Those Canuck PM Dawn fellas however were always shite. They can wash their faces in my urinal.

Anonymous said...

the story goes that everybody always let Vanilla get to the final round so they could see Willie D give him a royal ass whoop.
it's on the Houston rap book.
mp45

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

The Clean Up Man!

Anonymous said...

Obviously the best Hip Hop performances on TOTP are
PJ & Duncan - Let's get ready to rumble
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRAxdr8AwYQ
Feeder (ft Mark B & Blade) "Ya don't see the signs"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgCKPiCWRdg
and
Zig and Zag"dem gals they all love me"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0UMWXcYyS8

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Can't believe Liverpool didn't do Anfield Rap on TOTP.

Anonymous said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FgRI_riMSg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn6nZVz8hV8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-3ls5Ckq0I

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Fuck, how did I manage to miss Paul Hawksbee asking Ice Cube about John Barnes' Rap career? Amazing 😄

Molloy said...

Whole Golden Era passed me by first time round I won't lie. Rinsed all the Vanilla Ice, Snow, PM Dawn, and MC Hammer stuff then forgot about rap till Eminem came out cos it was barely on Irish radio at all.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Did Ireland give House Of Pain the Gas Face then?

Molloy said...

I think that was deemed excessively rowdy for daytime radio got relegated to school discos pretty quickly along with Sultins of Ping Where's Me Jumper.