Raps pioneering Clown Prince, as remembered by his friends, family, collaborators, and admirers.
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The Clown Prince of Hip-Hop.
That was Bizs ultimate gift to the world and a trait that carried intohis real life.
By all accounts, he was impossible not to like.
A Beatboxing Prodigy
Diamond Shell, a.k.a.
Sheldon Parker, Bizs younger brother:Biz got his name from his idol,Busy Bee Starski.
When he told me he wanted to be Bizzy Bee Markie, I said, Youre not busy.
We sit around all day.
He dropped the Bee, and thats how it started.
I called him Mark, and thats what the streets called him.
He came to us through adoption in 1972.
My mother did foster care, and he was our first foster kid.
Biz was 8 years old, and I was only 5, so I was nervous.
I remember walking in the door and seeing him for the first time.
We locked eyes, and right away I knew we were gonna have great adventures.
I finally had another guy who could throw the ball back to me.
But I didnt know those adventures would be legendary.
He rarely talked about his life prior to coming into ours or being in the foster system.
He was ours now, and he was happy.
This was his life.
When I first met him in the mid-80s, he said, Yo, when did you start?
We were both in our early 20s, and I started riding the train in 72.
I started B-boying in 73, DJing in 74, and hard-core [crate] digging in 78.
He was interested in how I went about digging and putting records together.
He was a true student of the game and wanted to know all the steps I had taken.
Biz was like an elephant.
He was like an idiot savant and never forgot anything.
I had the green suit on, and I was on the bike; it was cloudy.
Hed break down the whole scene.
When Biz would go digging for records, his famous words were always It has to befun-ky!
Theres an emphasis hed always put onfunky.
Doesnt matter what the album was as long as it was funky to Biz.
It could be Barbara Mandrell, Judas Priest, or Jefferson Starship.
Of course, he loved James Brown and Bootsy Collins.
If it was funky, he rocked with it.
Shell:I remember the first time he beatboxed.
This was junior high school.
We used to sit around hamboning, which was a [dance] rhythm thing we did.
One day, Biz just started beatboxing at 11 years old and never stopped.
[Future Bad Boy star]Craig Mackcame up to Biz, saying how he could beat him.
They started battling, and a crowd gathered.
Biz was on that roster, so I was spinning his records.
It was never really awkward, though, because Biz Marks vibe was always fun.
He said to everyone, Before we start this tour, were all gonna have fun.
He set the pace.
Ill never forget the look on Bizs face watching her leaving that hotel from across the parking lot.
Biz had so much jewelry that hed let his crew wear it, like big ropes.
On certain occasions, hed want all his jewelry and would yell, Truck me up!
That meant everyone had to take their jewelry off and put it all on Biz.
When it came to the ladies, Biz Mark was an oddity.
Shell:Growing up, we were not popular with the ladies.
Oh my goodness, not at all.
I would give a shot to talk to a girl and use the line Biz is my brother!
And they would go, Eww.
Id think,If hes ugly, whats that got to do with me?
!Things picked up for Biz with the ladies during the Roxanne Shante era.
He never changed his attitude and was always a good guy.
It just tookthat videofor the ladies to take notice.
Coming from a big family, we had to wait our turn and were thankful when we got it.
Biz was always thankful for getting his chance.
Even in difficult times, everything was a laugh and fun with him.
As Biz liked to rap about, we grew up in Long Island on Noble Street.
Around Christmas, Mom would give us a magazine and tell us to circle the toys we wanted.
Me and Biz were sitting on the porch, and I was circling whole pages in the magazine.
He circled this calculator watch, and that thing was like a hundred dollars back in 79.
I said, Biz!
Youre not gonna get that!
He doubled down again, saying, If I dont get this, I dont want nuthin.
So I circled some toys for him because I didnt want him to wake up on Christmas with nothing.
We looked out for each other as kids like that.
When he performed, he had the crowd going by himself.
John Leguizamo, actor and director:I was in my apartment in Queens when I first heard Biz.
Jackson Heights, on the fourth floor, in one of the project buildings we lived in.
It was the late 80s, and I cant remember if it wasRap City,The Box, orYo!
MTV Raps, but I used to live by those shows.
It was the Just a Friend video, and I thought,Oh my God!
This is so fucking fun!The fun of hip-hop in those days was so beautiful.
It had a sense of humor and was about celebrating life and creativity.
It was everything that I wanted to be as an actor.
Biz doing the John Belushi Black Beethoven thing on the piano was hilarious.
I needed a visual to go with my music, and there was no better visual.
He was such an incredible-looking character, and the fun he was having was infectious.
He was the unlikeliest guy to be a Don Juan, and that self-deprecation made him instantly lovable.
I met him through the Cold Chillin Records family, which was run by Tyrone Williams.
When you met one of them, you got to meet everyone.
I knew how incredible he was, and being able to work with him, he was very unique.
Most hip-hop artists would be like, Nah, Im not doing that.
Biz was down for anything.
The wig just made sense, and it became magical when he put it on.
The shirt didnt even fit him, so we had to cut out the back of it.
The jacket fit, but he couldnt take it off; otherwise, youd see the ripped shirt.
I shot it from an angle so you couldnt tell.
The [whole thing] was a two-day shoot because we didnt have any money back then.
You had to be superfast and super-creative, and thats how I chopped my teeth.
I said to Biz, You played the keys on the song, right?
Biz said, Yeah, but in the studio its different.
We put a little makeup on his hands and added the jewelry.
Ice-T:When Just a Friend blew up, it was absolutely a breath of fresh air in hip-hop.
Were from an era where originality is paramount.
You had to be original.
When you went to see the Fat Boys, it was some fat boys.
When you saw Whodini, they were some smooth operators.
Kane was a New York player.
Ice-T was an L.A. player/gangster.
Everybody had to be different, and the more different you could be, the more points you got.
Everybody was like, Yo, that shit is dope!
Thats where you got the points.
Martin:He loved comedy and making people laugh.
I had a production designer named Kevinwho brought in the shorts with the hearts all over them.
Biz saw them and immediately said, Yeah!
We did the whole Igor thing with the butler in Just a Friend.
Cobwebs on the piano.
That day started with the college scene, and we were already behind schedule.
The room where he catches Swann kissing the girl was an actual college dorm room.
I was pissed, but I never raised my voice to Biz.
We didnt have that kind of relationship, and it wouldnt have done anything.
I said, Dude, what happened?!
He said, We were driving on the LIE and got a flat tire.
Im thinking,Okay, you had a flat but are still four hours late.
His friends were there, and he was kinda smiling.
What could I do?
That was Biz, and that was who he was.
You could never get angry with Biz.
I could be frustrated, but he was impossible to be mad at.
He was too damn likable.
Hewasfunny, but he was one of the first to bring that playfulness into hip-hop.
When he first came out with Shante, that shit was dope.
It wasnt funny or cute.
He was doing all this dope shit, when he was only seen as the funny guy.
Ice-T:The way he rapped his beatboxing skills and unorthodox freestyling are not easy things to do.
He was supremely talented.
He was one of those people who never got mad and just made everything into a joke.
Theres very few people who have a really beautiful, happy heart, and Biz was one of them.
You just like kicking it with people like that.
To be around Biz Markie, you were always about to have fun.
Leguizamo:Music was a huge part of my life, and I was always dancing.
I was a kid whenuprockwas invented, so all my friends and I were competing and battling.
Uprock turned into break-dancing, and I was also doing the hustle.
Dance was everything at the house parties.
Biz was the soundtrack to a lot of that.
I put him on so many mixtapes, and hes still on my Feel Good music playlists.
Whenever you put Biz on at house parties, it would bring everyone to the dance floor.
Everybody would just go nuts.
When Biz came on, everybody in the club would be singing every single fucking lyric.
Latin and Black culture was blending hard at that time, and our cultures were influencing each other.
The DJ would cut the music and just let the crowd sing in unison.
Biz brought everyone together like that.
Martin:He was a character and a really funny guy.
I loveddoing videos for himbecause hed come to my office in midtown and say, Hey, Lionel.
Were gonna do this video, and it goes like this …
I just had to visualize it and give it my little spin.
Deep down, he knew.
He knew he wanted to be funny.
He wanted to be a comedian, but he was also incredible at beatboxing and hip-hop.
It was so fun making these little movies with him.
Rapaport:If there was no Biz Markie, there was no Big Daddy Kane.
If there was no Big Daddy Kane, there would be no Jay-Z.
Obviously, theres other influences to Jay-Z, but thats a fact.
We were Soul Brothers!
Biz for me didnt give a shot to be something he wasnt.
He just owned who he was & what he was really good at.
For me, that was the start of our friendship.
His Freedom of combining genres of music holds a place in history on its own.
Biz had a Purpose & he fulfilled it.
He spread the Love through his Being, his Music & his Gifts to the World.
Thx LIL BROTHER for Blessing us with ur Being!
Breakbeat Lou: I knew Marcel as well as Biz Markie.
In 2012, I was going through some personal stuff and was about to leave the game again.
You have something nobody else has.
This is a new era, and you have to work harder.
Think how many times Ive reinvented myself.
You gotta work hard, man.
That was Marcel talking to me, and it penetrated my mind, body, and soul.
That conversation is probably the reason Im still here today.
He was a heartwarming, sentimental man, and thats probably what most of the world never knew.
It was a complicated process, but basically the medications in the end were only making things worse.
I said wed get him the baddest wheelchair in the world.
And then he cried.
I had only seen Biz cry twice in my life.
And that was it.
But Ill leave you with a funny story.
He was not soft with his hands, and he could fight, man.
I remember one Halloween, our parents had bought a dryer, and it came in a huge box.
He painted a target on the front and back and put an old teapot on his head.
and started pelting Biz with eggs.
I was too young to do anything, but they egged him for like ten minutes.
I dove into the bushes and just waited for it to be over.
Biz had turtled up and went inside the box and sat on the sidewalk.
After they finally stopped, I peeked out and said, Yo, B, you okay?
He stood up and said, I saw everybody who threw an egg.
Im beating them ALL up.
It took him to Christmas, but he found all those kids and beat them up.
Biz was eating cereal from a salad bowl!
Who you got with you?
boom, we were in.
This pencil piece [below, drawn after his death] was extremely hard to complete.
So many memories and emotions.
Biz was a true friend.
These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
