Ice MC

ICE MC (aka Ian Campbell, b. 22.MAR.1965) is a Eurodance rapper from the 90s. Ice MC will be performing at Cluj-Napoca's first We Are The 90s Party (at the new Sports Hall on November 22nd, 2014). 

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Ian Campbell's parents moved from Jamaica to Nottingham (UK). When he was in high school his initials IC quickly got him the nickname ICE (lately he interpreted it as Ian Campbell Esquire).

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In 1989 he met singer and artist Roberto Zanetti (whose producer nickname is Robyx). Their first single together, Easy, became successful all over Europe and was followed by Cinema and Scream (all three singles promoted the debut album, Cinema - released in 1990). 

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RiCo for CZB: Ian Campbell… your nickname is ICE - how COOL are you?

Ice MC: I'm as cool as however they think I'm cool.

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RiCo for CZB: You are born in the UK but your parents were Jamaican immigrants… did you have problems in school because of this?

Ice MC: Not at all; any race issues that arose, we dealt with accordingly.

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CZB: When did you first discover your passion for music?

Ice MC: I had passion for music since I was about ten years old. I was a dancer before, so music came hand in hand.

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CZB: When did you start jotting down rhymes or did you start out by improvising/rapping?

Ice MC: I started by copying down whole songs and learning other rapper's tunes. By doing that I learned how to flow, then the writing and freestyling started.

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CZB: You took a decade off from releasing new music. How did you decide to begin your comeback in 2004? How did you meet with Robyx (Roberto Zanetti)?

Ice MC: It was just a natural thing. I did my own stuff for a bit (the Dreadatour album), then hooked up with Zannetti again, because he had some ideas for another project and I was cool with it.

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CZB: We Are The 90's. How long has it been since you've gotten on the bandwagon and how does it feel singing your old hits to live audiences again? 

Ice MC: Wow man, I love it. It kinda makes more sense to me performing now than it did back in the day. Probably because there's less pressure.

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CZB: Touring: what's the best and the worst part about it, from your experience?

Ice MC: The best thing is seeing that the people love the songs and being appreciated for my work. The worst thing is having to leave my kids.

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CZB: What did you like most about Trainspotting? Think About the Way was included in the soundtrack.

Ice MC: Well obviously, being a part of such a big movie is a blessing

…also meeting Ewan MacGregor and Danny Boyle in Florence was cool too.

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CZB: What's one of the funniest or most interesting things that has ever happened to you onstage or offstage?

Ice MC: That was when I learned to improvise …in Germany in 1993… the whole system went down while on stage, so me and Alessia (Aquilani  / Alexia) had to do the whole thing a cappella. We nailed it, though.

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CZB: What's the most interesting comment you have received from a fan or a person from the audience?

Ice MC: I remember one guy who came up to me in France and asked me to sign a CD that was from Captain Hollywood …because he thought I was him. How crazy is that? …It was also a compliment, as Hollywood is one of my favourites.

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CZB: You took a decade off from releasing new music. How did you decide to begin your comeback in 2004? How did you meet with Robyx (Roberto Zanetti)?

Ice MC: I split from Zanetti in 1994 and I wanted to try different things. I moved to England from Italy and I met a lot of different producers and artists. In 1995 I went to Germany and I did an album called Dreadatour with Masterboy. 

I was trying to find another style and I was trying to do some new stuff. So in 2004, Zanetti had the idea to do an album called Cold Skool. We had some problems in the past but we decided to bury the hatchet, you know what I mean? We got in the studio together and did this album. Everything's cool between me and him now. It's Alexia that I don't know anything about. I don't know where she is. She's doing her own thing; but me, her and Zanetti made a good team; we did some good stuff together. 

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CZB: When did you start painting?

Ice MC: When I ran out of money… but I really like to paint, mainly famous people, like Mary J. Blige, Pete Doherty, different… and it helps me relax. A painting costs 250 quid; you can buy one if you want; I can send it out to you.

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http://icemc.co.uk/

Interview conceived by: RiCo for CZB.ro

Thanks going out to Ice MC 

and Renate Roca-Rozenberg from PR & More 

for making this interview possible. 

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Ice MC will be performing at Cluj-Napoca's first We Are 90s Party (at the new Sports Hall on November 22nd, 2014). 

Songs for the show are:

• Rainy Day
• Think About the Way
• Easy
• Cinema
• Take Away the Colour
• Dark Knight Rider
• Music for Money
• Coco Jambo
• Give Me the Light

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Discography

• Cinema (1990) 
• My World (1992) 
• Ice'n'Green (1994)
• Ice'n'Green – The Remix Album (1995)
• Dreadatour (1996)
• Cold Skool (2004)

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Dreadatour (1996) was produced by Masterboy but in the 2000s Ice MC got in touch with Zanetti again to release a new album. 

Ian Campbell also sells paintings through his website.

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Renate Roca-Rozenberg, from PR & More, hired for doing PR at this event, was seated in the room (not next to the artists and organizer). Except for the CZB questions, she was the only active person at the press conference. 

It was kind of shocking to see that there were less than 10 reporters at this press conference. Not only was this one of the most important events in Cluj-Napoca in 2014 (apart from the fact that over 7.000 people attended the We Love the 90's gig, it was one of the opening events at the new Sports Arena, Polivalenta Cluj) but in 2015, Cluj-Napoca, Romania is European Youth Capital…

The sad fact is that there are practically NO music reporters for press conferences in Cluj; all of the local newspapers in print are politically run (at least 5 of the average 12 pages deal only with promoting local politicians) and none have a consistent or constant entertainment column. The online press works with copy-pasting email newsletters and bloggers are either self sufficient or not invited to press conferences. The largest number of press people I have seen at a music press conference was 20, for a Premiere at the Hungarian Opera in November 2014. 

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From answers received by Renate Roca (PR & More), here are two interesting Bytes about Ice MC:

(About the music business) CD's and vinyl are gone. Now we have the internet and you can get everything quick. Kids today have easy access to things in a different way. Artists too can get stuff out there quickly through the same media. If that would have been out when we were big acts, we would be in Beverly Hills now - we'd have big houses and shit… but it didn't work out like that. Do you know what I mean? 

There's a lot more easier access to get your stuff out there today.

The music itself has really changed too. You have the same riffs, the same chords, the same beats but the way the business runs is different.

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(About painting and graffiti) It's expression, ain't it?

It's like you express what you feel through your music and also you express what you feel through your art. I've enjoyed painting since I was a kid. I've liked graffiti as well. Listening to old school hip hop, I'd spray walls and stuff. Now I've started doing canvasses …and it's the same thing… If you start writing a song you have to sort out ideas …you leave it alone and go away, then you come back and try to finish off to make a nice piece of art. 

It's the same thing with painting …if you don't get it right, you can't hang it up. 

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