Chuck D: Vanilla Ice the "Jackie Robinson" of white rap

Asked about Eminem in a Commonwealthclub.org interview:

Chuck D: "I always thought his (Eminem's) interviews were not his inner views, but now his inner views and his interviews have become closer to each other, so he's trying to escape the commodity. He wasn't being as real as possible in his interviews. Yes, he's a hard worker, one of the most skilled cats out there, but you didn't invent being the most brilliant white kid that rapped. Understand that the Jackie Robinson of white kids rapping was the Beastie Boys, 3rd Bass and Vanilla Ice."

You give Vanilla Ice credit?

Chuck D: "When I saw Vanilla Ice in 1987, '88, I wanted to sign him. I said, "Man, there's an Elvis for every situation." I'm looking at this white kid with five black dancers behind him, just like Hammer's doing. I'm saying, "This is a switch." But he already had somebody else's management. I knew he was going to go through some heat, because it was an Afro-centric era, he's gonna come out as a white kid. He had to break down a lot of barriers. I don't like people's absence of memory. If he sold 22 million To The Extreme cassette tapes, why are so many folks in denial? Black folks got denial: Hammer denial. If you're seven or eight years old, how are you gonna play like, I'm straight outta Compton. You're seven or eight years old, you've got Vanilla Ice, Hammer, they've got cartoons. Their video is on MTV and you're gonna act like, Nah, that ain't real. Well, you ain't real yet, at nine."