Vanilla Ice’s American Dream

Photographs by Ysa Pérez Walk past the elevator in the gold-gilded living room, past the mural of Spanish galleons seeking the Fountain of Youth, past the Mortal Kombat console, step outside, and there—just by the lazy river—you’ll find Vanilla Ice’s 9/11 memorial.Last week, the 58-year-old rapper, born Robert Van Winkle, was giving me a tour of his mansion in Florida’s Palm Beach County. Pattering brightly and ceaselessly, he puzzled over his smart toilet (“I think it’s made for a woman to have fun and enjoy yourself on it, because it’s got buttons that I’m just thinking, This is curious”) and revealed his favorite Ninja Turtle (Raphael). We stopped at a shiny pole standing on the back patio. Before I could make any assumptions about what it was for, he explained that it had come from a fire station whose workers responded during the destruction of the World Trade Center. A wall plaque commemorated the 343 firefighters lost that day. “Never forget,” he said, before bringing me to his red-cushioned movie theater.That Van Winkle is a patriot there can be no doubt. On Friday night, he’ll perform at the Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C.—an event that many other famous musicians dropped out of because of its association with Donald Trump. Given that Van Winkle’s fame peaked with 1990’s “Ice Ice Baby,” his status as the musical centerpiece of our semiquincentennial may seem quite random. But really, the booking makes a lot of sense. At a time when national infighting has dispelled all hopes of unified partying, Van Winkle preaches an uncomplicated view of what makes the country great, beamed in from a seemingly more carefree time. Certainly, he’s lived the American dream, in all of its neon splendor. Van Winkle grew up in Dallas and Miami as a “dumpster diver,” he told me, who resold sneakers he’d rescued from the trash. As a teenager, he became enamored with the fad of breakdancing, which led him to rapping in small clubs, where he impressed hip-hop’s vanguar