The Kenblog: Remembering Biz Markie!

Howdy Folks! It’s The Kendog with some non-movie related news that still sucks anyway. On of the pioneering rappers of the eighties and great antidote to all the gangster rap that was all the rage at the time has died at the too-young age of fifty-seven. Biz Markie, one of the rappers along with The Fat Boys and Doug E. Fresh who brought human beatboxing into the mainstream and had a signature hit with his delightfully off-tune “Just A Friend” was known as “The Clown Prince Of Rap,” Markie, born Marcel Theo Hall, had been in ill health recently and had supposedly suffered a stroke earlier this year. In addition, he’d been struggling with Type 2 diabeties,

Markie came up when I was in high school in the late eighties, hitting his peak with the 1989 hit “Just A Friend,” a comedic song about a relationship with a girl who’s seeing another man on the side, but simply calls said man just a “friend.” Of course what people remember most about that song is the heavyset Markie at the piano with a white wig caterwauling the chorus at the top of his lungs. This bit of comic hilarity turned out to be improvised as Markie has said he couldn’t get anyone to come into the studio to sing the chorus. He ended up doing it himself and the rest is history. He would also appear in films like “Men In Black II” and become one of the most prolific DJs and collaborators in music history. In a musical arena where rappers take themselves so seriously most of the time, the comedic style of Biz Markie marks him as a true original! He will be missed! So Sayeth The Kendog!