Rob Van Winkle, better known as Vanilla Ice, doesn’t believe that any music made thus far in the 21st century is going to stand the test of time.
“They call this the lost generation, because from the year 2000 to the year 2016, there’s really nothing that defines pop culture,” Van Winkle told Entertainment Weekly.
“There’s no music that’s left such an impact that it defines a generation” he continued. “Nothing defines it. A hundred years passes, and you look back at 2000 to 2016, give me one pop icon that defines it. It’s not Justin Bieber.”
He went on to say that kids of this generation were forced to look back to the 90’s to find a culture to enjoy. ” “I’ve got two teenage daughters … it’s like they went to the ’90s to find a generation, to have something to have fun with fashion and pop culture,” he said. “There’s a space and time that people want to go back and relive or live for the first time, so that’s just because there’s nothing out there that really defines this generation.”
Vanilla Ice blew up the charts in 1990 with the release of the single “Ice Ice Baby.” It became the first hip hop song to top the Billboard charts that same year.
He is currently preparing to go out on the road as part of the I Love the 90’s tour, which Van Winkle says sold out in “record-breaking time.”
“But it’s not the soccer moms you’d think would be coming out,” he said. “It’s college kids and high school kids. It’s so incredible that most of them weren’t even born when the music was out! It goes to show that you can’t pick your fans, they pick you.”
He also recently performed at CinemaCon in Las Vegas for 20th Century Fox, debuting the new theme song for the next “Ice Age” movie, entitled “Ice Age Baby.”