For more than twenty years, stories have circulated pop-rapper Vanilla Ice and notorious hip hop mogul Suge Knight had a violent encounter over the rights to Ice’s hit song “Ice Ice Baby.” According to rumors, Knight dangled Vanilla Ice off of a hotel balcony to force Ice to sign over back-end publishing credits for his one hit.
But Mario “Chocolate” Johnson, a former ghostwriter for Vanilla Ice, says there’s no truth to the story. Johnson was managed by Suge and said that everything was handled professionally.
“We knew where [Vanilla Ice] was staying because I was supposed to be hearing some tracks he was doing. He wanted me to come by myself. But Suge said, ‘I’m going with you,'” he recalled. “When we went to the hotel that day, it was strictly for conversation. Nobody got pushed, nobody argued, no shoving, nothing. When we got there everything was peaceful. Attorney David Kenner showed up, took a statement, and we got all our paperwork together. We didn’t make [Vanilla Ice] sign papers. Our attorneys, through Sony, fought my case against Vanilla Ice.”
“Vanilla Ice made so much up in his mind, he actually started believing it. ‘Cause I was there; no threatening, no nothing’. We had a normal conversation. He tried to pay Suge for my flight ticket for coming out there to produce stuff. We sued using normal courts and attorneys,” he added. “You just heard it from me. It was more than a year in the settlement of that lawsuit that Chocolate finally got paid. Doesn’t mean [Vanilla Ice] didn’t get hung over a balcony, but if he did, it didn’t make him pay.”
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