RIP Biz Markie

Biz Markie passed away at 57 over the weekend.

When the news broke I was pretty bummed out. Being a hip hop fan, of course I know who Biz Markie was. He was known as the "Clown Prince of Rap". It was a fitting name. His music was good, but also very goofy. One of my first music video memories is the "Just a Friend" video. It was so perfect for the song and the person that Biz Markie was. When he wore that wild hair piece and "played" the piano, it still makes me laugh to this day. I am also a big fan of the stuff he did with the Beastie Boys. When he arrives on "Paul's Boutique" it is pure gold. He was so good at what he did in rap music. His niche was perfect for the time. He carved out a great role for himself and rode the wave. He was perfect.

I kind of forgot about Biz for a while in my early adult life. I still listened to hip hop but I was also in my jam band phase. Hip hop has never taken a back seat, but at this time there were only a select few hip hop artists I would listen to. And a lot of the early to mid 90's hip hop got pushed off to the side.

Then my son was born in 2012. Then we started to watch kids shows with him in the morning. Then we found "Yo Gabba Gabba". This is probably my favorite kids show of all time. It was so wild, but also very cool. They had great guests. They ran the gamut. I think it had something to do with DJ Lance because he was pretty deep in the club world and he knew famous people. The fact that he hosted a kids show was icing on the cake for these guests. Jack Black was on it a ton, I saw other people from TV shows I watched at the time, the musical guests were pretty dope and the people they had on for breakaway segments were the best. This was when Biz Markie re-entered my life. One of the segments on the show, probably my favorite, was "Biz's Beat of the Day". It was simple and pure but oh so fantastic. Biz Markie would come on, do a little segment where he explained beat making, do the beat and that was it. It was so incredible. We got to see a glimpse of his process. We got an idea of what it was like for him to make music. My son loved it. He would walk around the house doing Biz's beats all the time.

After seeing this I went back and dug back into his music catalog. It was awesome. It was like listening to hip hop for the first time again. I remembered why I was such a Biz Markie fan. I remembered what made him so likeable and so good at his craft. Seeing the beat of the day stuff, then going back to listen to him when he first made it big, it was a nice trip on one man's incredible career.

I knew that his diabetes was bad around two years ago when he had a stroke. I did not know it was this bad though. I guess he died from diabetes complications. That is a drag. Two of my favorite rappers have had debilitating problems with diabetes, Biz and Phife Dawg. It is such a bummer that a man as young as Biz Markie, again 57, is gone forever. He was a one of a kind artist that I will never forget, and I am glad that my now 9 year old son still remembers him from a show he watched when he was still a baby.

RIP Biz Markie. You will be very missed.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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