He brought his own kind of wild-style chaos to everything he did, a jester with soul, which is why he became the all-time champion of cameos — he made every song he touched better.
His longtime friend and collaborator Big Daddy Kane posted a video on July 1st, asking fans to “keep my brother in your prayers,” before putting the hoaxers on blast: “Remember, it’s better for you to get the news correct than get the news first.
He was the trickster who could close the show at the 1997 Tibetan Freedom Concert, with a Woodstock goof — he came onstage in an Afro wig, with a Day-Glo guitar, doing a human-beatbox imitation of Jimi Hendrix’s version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Only the Biz would try a prank like that.
As he said in his manifesto “I’m the Biz Markie,” “Me without big strong thoughts for a Biz song/Is like Patti LaBelle not singing with a wig on.” He loved to take it to the stage, one of rap’s loosest, wildest, most virtuosic live performers, playing around with his biggest hit.
Biz and Big Daddy Kane were an Eighties duo as iconic as Chuck D and Flavor Flav, with a similar chemistry: the big man and the motormouth wise-ass.
Born in Harlem in 1964 and raised on Long Island, Biz made his debut on Roxanne Shante’s 1986 single “The Def Fresh Crew,” billed as the Inhuman Orchestra, doing his beatbox version of the Meow Mix cat-food jingle.
Biz’s early days got captured in the excellent 1986 Dutch TV documentary Big Fun in the Big Town, a crucial snapshot of early New York hip-hop.
In Ego Trip’s Book of Rap Lists, from 1999, the Biz offered a list of his favorite things: his huge collection of toys , Barbie dolls, board games, 12-inch singles by artists from Thin Lizzy to Billy Joel, white-label promos of every James Brown album, karate-movie posters, lunch boxes, action figures, video games.
His 1988 debut ,Goin’ Off, was a classic, but his best all-around album was the 1989 hit The Biz Never Sleeps, with “Just a Friend,” the Fat Albert dance groove “Mudd Foot,” and “My Man Rich,” the sad tale of a friend turned crack dealer.
You know how when you have a feeling that your football team is gonna win the game? Well, I had a feeling that record was going to be a hit.” He turned his sob story into a hit that still makes the world smile.
The first time he met the Beasties, he asked, “Yo, you know where there’s a candy store?” They wondered if he meant drugs.
Biz got sued for sampling what might be the 1970s’ most stomach-turning hit, “Alone Again, Naturally,” in a parody called “Alone Again.” The judge was a big fan of O’Sullivan — asked for an autograph — and showed his rap expertise by asking a witness, “What is R&B?” His Honor came down hard against Biz, called sampling theft, and effectively shut down hip-hop’s Golden Age of sample-delic creativity.
Biz beatboxes his way through it, saying, “Me and rap is like peanut butter and jelly/Which reminds me of a song by my man Gene Kelly.” He got even more generous and prolific with his cameos on other folks’ records, helping out Jay-Z here, Lou Rawls there, the Flaming Lips on “2012,” the Spin Doctors on the Space Jam soundtrack .
The Biz became a kiddie-TV star on Yo Gabba Gabba, an ideal gig for him, dropping the “Beat of the Day.” He had a cameo in Men in Black 2 as a beatboxing alien, and did guest shots on Spongebob Squarepants and Adventure Time.