Rapper was ‘clown prince of hip-hop’
Charmed fans with 1989 hit Just a Friend
Biz Markie, a New York rapper, DJ and human beatbox who became known as the “clown prince of hip-hop” for his playful style and joyous charm, and who climbed the music charts in 1989 with his hit Just a Friend, died Friday in Baltimore. He was 57.
His representative, Jenni Izumi, confirmed the death in a statement but did not cite a specific cause. Biz Markie was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2010 and reportedly suffered a stroke last year.
At a time when other emcees rapped about street gangs, hustlers, radical politics or police brutality, Biz Markie brought a lighter approach to hip-hop, rapping about a beloved Brooklyn mall, the pleasures of nose picking and the inspiration that came to him while sitting on the toilet. “With his silly humour and inventive, sample-laden productions, he proved that hip-hop could be funny and melodic, without sacrificing its street credibility,” wrote All Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine.
A self-described “class clown of the rap business,” Biz Markie had his first and only Top 10 hit with Just a Friend.
The song took its jaunty piano melody from Freddie Scott’s (You) Got What I Need and featured a chorus, sung by Biz Markie, that was unabashedly off-key, helping turn Just a Friend into an infectious singalong staple.
“A lot of people didn’t like the record at the beginning,” he told Entertainment Weekly in a 2019 interview. “They would say, ‘Biz is trying to sing? Aw, the record is wack.’ But I wasn’t supposed to sing the (chorus). I asked people to sing the part, and nobody showed up at the studio, so I did it myself.”
Complex magazine later named Just a Friend the funniest rap song ever recorded. It reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and helped sell more than half a million copies of his second fulllength album, The Biz Never Sleeps (1989), for which he and his cousin Cool V were credited as producers.
While Biz Markie continued to perform for decades, his recording career slowed after the release of his followup album, I Need a Haircut (1991).
Marcel Theo Hall was born in Manhattan on April 8, 1964, and was nicknamed Markie when he was a boy.
Information on survivors was not immediately available.