Some context: Robert Matthew Van Winkle was born in Dallas, Texas, on October 31, 1967. Van Winkle has never known his biological father; he was given the family name of the Dutch man his mother was married to at the time of his birth. When Van Winkle was four, his mother divorced. Afterward, he grew up moving between Dallas and Miami, where his new stepfather worked at a car dealership.
As of the late 2000s, Ice's live performances feature a mix of newer, rock and techno-influenced material and old-school hip hop. Ice performs with a live drummer and DJ, and sometimes sprays his audience with bottled water. Ice's performances often feature an inflatable grim reaper balloon, a dancer in a clown mask, and confetti thrown into the audience. Describing his performances, Ice stated "It's high energy, stage diving, pyrotechnics, girls showing their breasts. It's crazy party atmosphere."  Ice stated that his musical style was influenced by underground music, rather than mainstream music, and that his influences included hip hop and funk artists such as Funkadelic, Rick James, Roger Troutman, Egyptian Lover and Parliament. Ice is a big fan of 50's and 60's reggae and Bob Marley's work and has also stated that he enjoys Rage Against the Machine, Slipknot, and System of a Down.  Ice sometimes plays bass, drums and keyboards on studio recordings. Vanilla Ice referred to his mainstream music as "above-ground" rather than underground, as he tried to make danceable beats and removed expletives so that the songs could reach a wider audience. A lot of his early hits had Ice boasting sexual conquests, in 1991, Ice was quoted "I rap about what I know. Girls and stuff. That's what is going through my head."  When asked about his darker sound in 2002, Ice replied; "Music is about reflection and I'm just reflecting my life and everything it's been and there's no way I'm going to be able to stress what I want and mean over a break beat, you know, it's too emotional and it's too intense, so you have to have the intensity of the band, it's like a symphony, you know, you have to build on the intense parts, and so it just wasn't going to happen, to come extreme over some hip hop record, so to exorcise my demons I had to have the band."
What influenced Vanilla Ice?
A: his influences included hip hop and funk artists such as Funkadelic, Rick James, Roger Troutman, Egyptian Lover and Parliament.
Some context: Safin was born in Moscow to Tatar parents, Mubin ("Mikhail") Safin and Rauza Islanova. He speaks Russian, English, and Spanish as well as his native Tatar. His parents are former tennis players and coaches. His younger sister, Dinara, is a former world number one professional tennis player and silver medalist at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
A succession of injuries hindered Safin's progress throughout his career.  In 2003, he missed the majority of the season due to a wrist injury.  During the 2005 clay-court season, Safin suffered a knee injury, which he played through all the way up to Wimbledon with the help of pain killers and anti-inflammatories. Safin was subsequently defeated in the early rounds of each of the seven tournaments he played between the Australian Open and the French Open, culminating in an early round defeat at the French Open. Safin made a surprise finals appearance at the Wimbledon tune-up tournament in Halle on grass. He lost the final narrowly to the defending champion, Federer. He only played one tournament in the summer hard-court season, in Cincinnati, where he lost in the quarterfinals to Robby Ginepri. He also missed the Tennis Masters Cup.  Injuries continued to bother Safin in 2006. Although Safin made appearances at the 2006 ATP Masters tournaments at Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo, Rome and Hamburg, his ranking plummeted to as low as No. 104. He began to recover in time for the 2006 US Open, in which Safin defeated Argentine David Nalbandian, who was then world No. 4 in a riveting second-round match. Safin then lost in the fourth round to former world No. 2 German Tommy Haas, also in a fifth-set tiebreaker. Positive performances at the Thailand Open, where he was narrowly edged out by No. 7 seed, James Blake, and the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, the first all-Russian final at that event, losing to compatriot, Ukrainian-born Nikolay Davydenko, marked Safin's recovery. Despite the injury, Safin still posted 7 wins against top ten players in 2006, fourth-most on the ATP tour behind just Federer (19), Nadal (10), and Blake (8).
Did they prevent him from playing?
A:
He began to recover in time for the 2006 US Open,