Vanilla Ice and Salt N Pepa bring back the decade of the discman with I Love The ‘90s tour

IT’S time to stop, collaborate and listen. The love affair with retro rap and R&B continues with these ’90s big names teaming up for a special tour.

Rapper Vanilla Ice, otherwise known as Rob Van Winkle, will be performing at the Beach Palace Hotel in Coogee, Sydney for a special New Year's Eve concert.

STOP, collaborate and listen. Vanilla Ice is heading to Australia for yet another tour celebrating the decade ruled by the Discman and Tamagotchis.

Co-headlining with regular visitors to our shores, Salt N Pepa, the I Love the 90s tour will hit Australian arenas in June next year.

Other artists confirmed on the bill of all killer R&B and rap hits, no filler are Color Me Badd (I Wanna Sex You Up), Tone Loc (Funky Cold Medina), Coolio (Gangsta’s Paradise) and Young MC) Bust A Move).

Vanilla Ice, aka Robert Van Winkle, has parlayed the enormous success of his breakthrough rap hit Ice Ice Baby into a career which includes his DIY television series The Vanilla Ice Project and star turns on reality series such as Dancing With the Stars.

He is currently in the middle of the US leg of the tour which began in April and said the show was proving to be a “four-hour Zumba class”.

Salt N Pepa are celebrating their 30th anniversary and enduring popularity for Push It with the I Love 90s tour. Picture: Chris Pavlich

“It’s like a block party from the ‘90s. Everyone knows every song,” he said.

The nostalgic appeal of these acts who enjoyed their 15 minutes on the charts two decades ago is proving to be lucrative on the concert stage with a raft of tours here in the past two years.

Currently Nelly, TLC, 112 and Mya are entertaining audiences on the RNB Fridays Live arena tour.

But the tours are also finding a family audience thanks to the regular use of hits in film, television and advertisements.

He cites its use in the Will Ferrell film Step Brothers as his personal favourite, alongside Ice Age and Mr Popper’s Penguins.

“People wonder why I have nine-year-olds at my concerts who know all the words to Ice Ice Baby and Ninja Rap and it’s because of those movies as well as YouTube,” he said.

He isn’t so fond of the Eminem name-drops he got in several of the rapper’s hits including Role Model and Purple Pills.

“Are you kidding me? I don’t even think about (him),” he said.

American rapper Coolio enjoyed huge success with Gangsta’s Paradise. Picture: Supplied

He does, however, have plenty of time for his tour mates on the bill, and said there is plenty of scope for collaboration on the I Love the 90s stage.

“I knew everybody from back in the day and we’re all getting along out here,” he said.

“We do some freestyle raps, old school freestyle and you never know who is going to come up. Coolio has a couple of times.”

Sampling the bassline from the Queen and David Bowie hit Under Pressure, Ice Ice Baby was the first hip hop to top the American pop charts.

Ice famously dated Madonna for several months at the height of his fame in 1990.

I Love the 90s kicks off at Hisense Arena, Melbourne on June 7 and then hits Qudos Bank Arena on June 9, Eatons Hill Hotel, Brisbane on June 10 and Perth Arena on June 13.

Tickets go on sale on Thursday from $99 with details via mjrpresents.com

Originally published as Vanilla Ice and Salt N Pepa bring back the decade of the discman with I Love The ‘90s tour