Vanilla Ice

Robert Clift Looks at Racial Identity in Hip-Hop Music

Blacking Up: Hip-Hop’s Remix of Race and Identity, airing in February on public television, explores the tension between white racial identity and black cultural propriety at a time when hip-hop is redefining American life. Filmmaker Robert Clift recounts some of the questions he received about the film and what it was like working with white rappers — including Vanilla Ice. Read his take below.

C-Note of Too White Crew performs at the Bluebird in Bloomington, Ind.

In the years leading up to this film’s release, I’ve wondered, like any filmmaker, how people were going to react to it. Thanks to Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s Super Bowl show, fines from the FCC was a top concern for many at PBS, and the topic of my film lent itself to some objectionable language. So for years while my film waited for an audience, I fielded people’s questions and comments.

“When am I going to see it?”
“White kids and hip-hop? You’re doing a film about wiggers?”
“Don’t you think we’re past this already?”
“Is that what my kid is doing?”
“It’s going to be on PBS?”
“Did you really interview Vanilla Ice?”

First, yes, I did really interview Vanilla Ice, and yes, he really did consent to the interview. To be honest, I found his cooperation surprising. Getting white people to talk about race was perhaps the most difficult part of making this film, and that difficulty doubled when it came to white rappers. I would have loved to interview Eminem, for example, but I had little success with anything but being brushed off by his handlers. The perception was that he had too much to risk. Too many people, too many hip-hop magazines, some of which were started by white people, might use it as an opportunity to go after him.