What to Read: “In September 1990, the anonymous white dancer in the crowd would drop To the Extreme, which would sell 15 million copies worldwide, faster than any album since Purple Rain six years earlier. Its inescapable lead single, “Ice Ice Baby,” became the first rap song to top the Billboard Hot 100 and accelerated the genre’s crossover into the American mainstream. There were Vanilla Ice dolls, a ghostwritten autobiography, a Scholastic book with MC Hammer, rock ‘n’ roll comics, and a board game that came with a toy boom box; a Vanilla Ice movie and cameos in both Madonna’s Sex book and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel. The first white solo rapper to become a pop star would have one of the most dizzying ascents and precipitous downfalls in music history. At 23, he was briefly the biggest rapper in the world and the public enemy of hip-hop purists—the subject of (still ongoing) debates about appropriation and authenticity. But before any of that could transpire, he had to win over the doubters in South Dallas.” Jeff Weiss in The Ringer: The (Mostly) True Story of Vanilla Ice, Hip-Hop, and the American Dream.

+ What to Watch: “PEN15 is middle school as it really happened. Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle star in this adult comedy, playing versions of themselves as thirteen-year-old outcasts in the year 2000, surrounded by actual thirteen-year-olds.” Sound weird? It is, in a good way. Check out PEN15 on Hulu.

+ What to Wear: Time is running out make sure you’re dressed for success on Nov 3. Score your Let There Be Light T-shirt now.