July 17, 2021, 4:15 p.m.
New York (dpa) Another star of the American hip-hop scene has died. Biz Markie was only 57 years old. He is next in a line of rappers who shaped the genre and whose lives ended early.
Biz Markie is dead. The hip-hop star died at the age of 57.
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The US rapper Biz Markie, who had his biggest hit in 1989 with Just A Friend, is dead. The musician died on Friday evening at the age of 57 in Baltimore in the presence of his wife Tara, confirmed his manager Jenni Izumi to the broadcaster CNN and others US media.
Information on the cause of death was not initially published.
Markie was nicknamed The Diabolical and was also called the Clown Prince of Hip Hop because of his funny lyrics. He was born with the real name Marcel Theo Hall in 1964 in the Harlem district of New York and grew up on Long Island just outside the city.
Originally he became known as a beatbox artist and was part of the genre-leading Juice Crew. In 1998 he also had a guest appearance on the song Will Smith, Meer Gayne by the German group Fnf Sterne Deluxe. He was hospitalized in 2020 because of a serious diabetes illness.
Biz Markie’s death is the latest in a long line of rap artists to die in the past few months. The most famous case: Earl Simmons, known as DMX and an industry superstar at the turn of the millennium with tracks like Ruff Ryder’s Anthem or X Gon ‘Give It To Ya, his death at the age of 50 on April 9 after a heart attack and days of artifice Ventilation caused great consternation among fans and colleagues.
On April 17th, the rapper Black Rob (Whoa), who became known at the side of P. Diddy, died at the age of 51. Gift of Gab, born in 1971 and co-founder of the duo Blackalicious, died on June 18th of kidney problems.
In recent years, however, the violent deaths of stars of the genre have made headlines again and again: King Von (hit album: Welcome to O’Block), who died in November 2020 after a shootout in Atlanta, was only 26 years old. In March 2019, Nipsey Hussle was shot dead outside his clothing store in Los Angeles at the age of 33. These shooting dramas brought back memories of the 1990s, when the murders of Tupac Shakur, 25, and Notorious BIG, 24, kept the music world in suspense.
We mourn a real son of Harlem tonight, wrote New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Twitter on the death of Biz Markie. With a typical New York sense of humor, he turned hip-hop on its head.
dpa-infocom, dpa: 210717-99-418425 / 4
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