New York hip hop pioneer Biz Markie dies

Biz Markie, a New York musician whose heyday coincided, between the eighties and the nineties, with the golden age of hip hop died this Friday in Baltimore (USA), as confirmed by his representative. Markie also made pop music history with his smash hit,

included on his second album,

(1989). His distinguishing mark was his sense of humor in an age when a certain rap preferred not to take himself too seriously and often flirted with comedy, before engaging with the violent

aesthetic

and before also embracing the most obscene face. of capitalism with the cult of

.

His tendency to joke without complications, although effective, and his covers, such as that of the album

(1991),

in which he was seen in a barbershop with a barber wielding a chainsaw, they earned him the alias of

something like the "prince of hip hop clowns."

That playful spirit, the taste for

classic

(like that irresistible line of piano

by Freddie Scott, in

and his condition as a pioneer of

, a technique that turns the human being into a drum machine, were his weapons. to stand out in the genre in a time and a city, New York, that had plenty of talent.

“We appreciate the many calls and prayers of support we have received during this difficult time.

With his art, Biz left a legacy that will always be celebrated by his industry peers and beloved fans, "the family said in a statement reproduced by

The causes of death have not been revealed, although he was diagnosed with a severe variant of diabetes a decade ago and was hospitalized at the beginning of the year.

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Born Marcel Hall in 1964, his adolescence coincided with the explosion of rap.

He was there at the beginning, along with key names from the New York scene, like

Roxanne Shanté, Marley Marl, Kool G Rap or Big Daddy Kane (a childhood friend who also mixed rhymes with histrionics and wrote some of his lyrics). After a period in the mid-eighties as a

he joined, along with the aforementioned musicians, the Juice Crew collective, in Queensbridge, a gigantic development of social housing and an essential place in the cartography of hip hop of the time. The gang was led by radio host DJ Mr Magic, whose program

it was the first, in the early eighties, dedicated to the genre to be broadcast on a wide range radio.

The record arm of the group, which would be incorporated into nineties rap references such as Masta Ace, was the Cold Chillin 'label, whose unmistakable typography was synonymous with talented and unprejudiced music since the end of the previous decade.

He made his solo debut in 1988 with the album

One of his first hits was

which was based on an old James Brown song and later covered in 1997 by West Coast musician Snoop

Dogg.

contained in his second album the following year, reached the

at a time when the charts were a very serious thing.

In 1990, he starred in an epoch-making episode.

It was when Gilbert O'Sullivan sued him, considering that the song

from Biz Markie's third album contained eight bars of

(1972), the Irish pop singer's hit.

The rapper had not asked permission to do so.

He was sentenced to a fine of 250,000 euros in damages and distribution of the album was stopped.

The disc was returned to stores in 1995, without the subject in question.

Biz Markie, in 2009, performs in the middle of a Denver Nuggets basketball game.David Zalubowski / AP

The ruling set a precedent and in a way ended an age of innocence in rap, whose aesthetic is based on the use of previously recorded material to create new emotions. In those years, the producers learned that, if they wanted to continue with their practices, they had to ask permission first, which creatively influenced the genre, which on occasions opted to grind the

until they were unrecognizable and looked in less trodden terrain, in the repertoire of artists with less powerful lawyers. The run-in with O'Sullivan inspired Markie's fourth album, 1993's

(which can be translated as "all

are declared").

Like many of the pioneers of rap, he found it difficult to stay in the gap after that, despite not yet being in his 30s.

He would return to the studio in 2003 for the Tommy Boy label, with a forgettable album,

in which he continued to display good humor, as evidenced by his cover, in which he is seen wearing Indian feathers and a naked torso.

He left some film and television appearances.

In recent times he lived in the sparsely rapper town of Bowie, in the state of Maryland, and in an interview in

Awarded to announce one of his DJ appearances, he declared in 2019 something that, if not an epitaph, sounds a lot like him: “I'm going to be Biz Markie until I die.

Even after I'm dead, I'll still be Biz Markie. "