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My favorite line in all of this is when he is getting grilled by Arsenio Hall about his background and says “It doesn’t matter where you come from, it’s where y

My favorite line in all of this is when he is getting grilled by Arsenio Hall about his background and says “It doesn’t matter where you come from, it’s where you’re at.” I think that critics in the US are too obsessed with the idea of “authenticity”. Authenticity can be a useful device for quality control, and many authentic things are truly great. But it’s also often used to make people feel guilty for enjoying things which are inauthentic, which is really unfortunate. Vanilla Ice is a talented guy, and “Ice Ice Baby” brought me a ton of joy in my youth. He really did not deserve the amount of ridicule that he received in the popular media.

bsenftner 6y ago
“Authenticity” is and has always been a successful method of "Tribe Security". Where in largely white Rock & Roll, it is social suicide to "sell out" by licensing one's music for commercial jingles; in Hip Hop this is called "getting paid" and treated as "knowing one's power and position". Authenticity really is knowing when to exhibit the expected Tribe Signaling. Having knowledge of a Tribe's nonverbal signaling enables one to infiltrate any social group lacking formal security.