He’s been called a lot of things over the years: a murderer, a drunk, an abuser, but nothing hurts Darrin O’Brien, a.k.a. Snow, more than a comparison to Vanilla Ice. Ouch.

Both had hits around the same time. Vanilla with his Ice Ice Baby, and Snow with Informer. Both are white and both were singing black. But that’s where the comparison ends. Over a coffee on Front street, Snow, who’s made a comeback with his new album Mind on the Moon, explains why Vanilla Ice has always been whack.

‘There was a lot of talk about that guy and I always felt a little sorry for him because they (the people around him) made him into that guy. And then he shot his mouth off saying that he grew up hard and all that. It was just lies.’

Darrin did grow up hard. He was raised in a housing project at Don Mills and Sheppard where everybody was getting drunk and fighting all the time. ‘My world was kind of small back then,’ he says as he fidgets with the black toque that he’s pulled down over his ears. ‘That was kind of all that I knew.’

He never showed up for high school and gave up after his third attempt at grade nine. Instead, he says, he was hanging out in his bedroom listening to reggae and rewinding the tapes so that he could hear what they were saying. Eventually he learned to speak patois and then sing it. Which is how he got his start in the music biz.

‘I was really lucky I guess. I never had to do that demo tape stuff. I was down in New York and MC Shan heard that I could sing, brought me into the studio, and that was it. After that we came out with Informer which just took off like crazy…’

He says that his life would have been easier if Informer wasn’t such a huge hit. It was his first single and it reached number one on the US Billboard chart where it sat for seven weeks. It has been recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the Best Selling Reggae single in US history and the Highest Charting Reggae single in history.

‘It would have been nice if it was like my fifth song or something. It was just, wow! So overwhelming.’

Informer is said to be the inspiration for the Barenaked Ladies’ hit One Week. And Stephen Page is a distant cousin of Snow. When asked about it, Snow laughs. ‘Yeah yeah, that’s true. He’s the black sheep of our family. Whenever people get together they’re always talking about the trouble that Stephen’s getting into. I just wish that he would write a hit for me.’

Snow has been in a lot of trouble. You might remember all the talk about his murder charge when Informer came out. He was eventually acquitted but not before serving some time in Metro East Detention Centre. Later he was convicted of assault for a different incident and did some time in Maplehurst, in Milton. Of prison, he says that he learned only that he shouldn’t go back. ‘That’s about it man. Just stay away from that place.’

Irish Whiskey, specifically Jameson’s, is the reason for his violent behavior. ‘Whenever I drink that shit I just get angry,’ he says leaning forward in his chair. ‘And after I get angry I get violent. I’ve got a simple formula now, no drinking… no trouble.’

So he’s been sober for nearly three years and has a new attitude which you can hear in his new singles, ‘Everybody Wants to be Like You’ and ‘The Plumb Song, both of which are spending some time on the charts. The whole album is actually a lot lighter than his first three and is sprinkled with positive messages, which Snow says reflects his new attitude and outlook on life.

‘There is really a whole lot of negative shit in the world already. And I was thinking that I don’t need to add more to it. I’ll leave that to the other guys. If that’s how they’re selling records then fine, I just don’t need to do it too.’

The big change for Darrin came with the birth of his daughter, Justuss, nearly six years ago. The little gaffer even introduces one of the songs on the album: ‘this is my daddy and this is his new sound.’ She means everything to the rapper-come-singer.

‘She is my whole world right now. I hang with her for fun. She is so smart too. She has really mellowed me out. If someone cuts me off on the highway I really don’t care anymore.’

Some people have been calling his new sound ‘Soda,’ a sort of mix of reggae and pop but Darrin doesn’t really care what you call it. ‘When Informer came out everybody was up in my face saying: ‘You can’t sing reggae, you’re a white guy. And now that I am singing more, people are like: ‘Why aren’t you doing more reggae?’ I can’t win, so it doesn’t really matter to me anymore.’

He’s kind of sick on the day of our interview and says that he has been sleeping on the floor so that his long time girlfriend Tamei doesn’t catch it. And he’s more than happy to do a photo shoot with the Rosco Photographer and proves that he is obviously comfortable hanging out in front the camera. He’s even a bit of a ham.

‘I’m really comfortable because I’ve done so many videos. I can forget that the camera is there at all.’ Which makes him something of a natural actor. In addition to his new album, look for Snow in an upcoming feature called ‘Prison Song’, which he stars in along with Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, Elvis Costello and Mary J Blige. It is produced by Robert DeNiro and is coming out this spring. Snow plays a prison guard, which he is able to laugh about. ‘I did a lot of research for the role so it was actually quite easy for me. We shot it in New York and it was a lot of fun.’

After the interview we take a stroll through St. Lawrence Market where Snow, who talks with a straight ol’ Canuck accent has a bit of fun with the shopkeepers, and slings some patios.

Darrin to a Shopkeeper: ‘Yo, you got guinep?’ (a small Jamaican fruit)

Shopkeeper stares.

‘Guinep! Ya got, guinep?’

He looks at Darrin and smiles. ‘Oh, are you from the West Indies?’

‘Naw, me friends are.’

‘I’m Henry,’ a smiling shopkeeper says with an outstretched hand. ‘What’s your name?’

‘M’name’s Snow.’

Of course.