Printable Biography of Biz Markie

He has been labeled "The Clown Prince of Hip-Hop".

Markie's career began in the early 1980s. He established his reputation and cemented his place in Hip-Hop history as a beat-box artist. He was one of the original artists that helped producer Marley Marl build Cold Chillin' Records. MC Shan and Roxanne Shante were Marley Marl's and Cold Chillin' Records first acts. Biz beatboxed on Roxanne Shante's underground hit "Def Fresh Crew" (1986), which lent credibility to his recording career and put Cold Chillin' on the map. In the same year, Biz Markie's 'coming out' single, "Make the Music With Your Mouth, Biz", was released on Prism Records. He released his debut album, Goin' Off, which attracted a fair amount of attention, largely due to the lead single, Make the Music With Your Mouth, Biz. The album also featured the underground hit singles The Vapors and Pickin' Boogers.

A year later, Biz broke into the mainstream when Just a Friend, a single featuring rapped verses and out-of-tune, sung choruses, reached the pop top ten. The accompanying album, The Biz Never Sleeps, which also included "Things Get a Little Easier", that was sampled from the Bobby Susser, anti-drug, hit song, "Once You Understand", went gold.

As one of the most prominent hip-hop stars of a still low-key musical scene, expectations were high for Biz's next album, I Need a Haircut. Sales were already disappointing when Biz was served a lawsuit by Gilbert O'Sullivan, who claimed that the album's Alone Again featured an unauthorized sample from his hit Alone Again (Naturally). O'Sullivan's claim was upheld in a landmark ruling, Grand Upright Music, Ltd. v. Warner Bros. Records, Inc.,[1] that altered the landscape of hip-hop, finding that all samples must be cleared with the original artist before being used. In accordance with the ruling, Warner Bros., the parent company of Cold Chillin', had to pull I Need a Haircut from circulation, and all companies had to clear samples with the samples' creators before releasing the records. This development mirrored the increasing popularity of hip-hop and the financial stakes over which releases were set. Biz responded in 1993 with the mischievously titled All Samples Cleared!, but his career had been hurt by the publicity emanating from the lawsuit, and the record suffered accordingly. For the remainder of the decade, he stayed out of the spotlight, occasionally doing work like his 1996 freestyle rap commercial on MTV2 and many guest appearances with the Beastie Boys, "Check Your Head" (1992), "Ill Communication" (1994), "Hello Nasty" (1998), and their anthology The Sounds of Science (1999). He also worked with Canibus on the first track on the Office Space soundtrack (1999).

At the turn of the century, Biz redirected his focus to turntablism over rapping, but he continued making various appearances in mainstream media. He interpreted the song Bennie and the Jets on an episode of The Chris Rock Show. Biz also appeared on records by Morcheeba, Will Smith (e.g. Willennium), and Len, a Canadian rock/rap ensemble most notable for their hit "Steal My Sunshine".

In 2002, he appeared as a rapping alien in Men in Black II with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, essentially playing an alien parody of himself (beatboxing was his native language in the film). In 2003 he appeared in the international television series titled Kung Faux performing a series of voice over characters featured in a variety of episodes. In 2004, his song The Vapors appeared on the soundtrack of Rockstar's popular videogame Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which featured a old school hip hop radio station, Playback FM. In 2005, Biz detoured from his recording duties to appear on the first season of the television show Celebrity Fit Club which challenged celebrities to lose weight by a combination of diet and exercise. Biz Markie lost more weight than anybody else in the competition. That year, he was also in an episode of The Andy Milonakis Show. He appeared as the Rap Fairy, and said, "I'm the Biz Markie, and it's about that time I grant you the powers of rap and rhyme." He granted Milonakis "rap powers", and demanded $35 from Milonakis, who paid him with potato chips and beef jerky.

He has also made a career as a DJ, giving performances where he uses his abdomen to move a record on a turntable and thus scratch. He is also a legendary record collector and supposedly the sole owner of a rare CTI 12" containing a version of Take Me To The Mardi Gras which has no bells in the intro.