Happy 30th Anniversary to Biz Markie’s third studio album I Need A Haircut, originally released August 27, 1991.
Editor’s Note: ‘I Need A Haircut’ is not currently available in authorized form via major streaming platforms, hence the absence of embedded audio & video in this article.
Marcel “Biz Markie” Hall is one of the most beloved figures in hip-hop, a character so unique that you couldn’t make him up. Besides being a hip-hop savant, The Biz was a legendary crate-digger, a collector of all types of pop culture material, and a man who possessed a seemingly boundless passion for life.
With his recent passing, the Manhattan-born, Long Island-raised artist is most fondly remembered for his late 1980s musical output, including spectacular albums like Goin’ Off (1988) and The Biz Never Sleeps (1989). I’ve always thought that his third effort, I Need A Haircut, deserves its respect as a really dope album. Instead, it’s remembered for all of the wrong reasons.
I Need A Haircut was at the center of the debate over sampling in hip-hop for reasons that we’ll get into later. But at the time of its release, it was a solid follow-up to what was the biggest commercial hit of The Biz’s career, The Biz Never Sleeps. Anchored by the platinum single “Just A Friend,” the album went gold. Nothing about “Just A Friend” screamed “hit” when it was first released, but it became an adored pop-phenomenon. Biz’s (intentionally) awful crooning and piano loop inspired by Freddie Scott’s “You Got What I Need” made it just quirky enough to catch on, but still felt like a genuine product of the mind of Biz Markie.
As a follow-up, I Need A Haircut is a little hard to characterize. There are few tracks that seemed designed to capitalize on the success of “Just A Friend,” but no overt commercial overtures. It features some of Biz’s most entertaining and inspired lyrical performances. There are heavy doses of Biz’s goofiness side by side with serious-minded narratives. Like Biz Never Sleeps, it’s produced entirely by the Biz, but it’s even more creative, as The Biz digs deeper in the crates to construct soulful and jazzy tracks.
“Road Block” is the first attempt to work from the formula of “Just A Friend.” It’s the first of many story tracks on the album, and one of a few to deal with Biz’s experiences with difficult women. Biz himself hooks up a delicate piano and horn sample from The Crusaders’ “Listen and You’ll See,” as he explains his attempts to hook up with a prospective mate, only to be “blocked” by her friend. The song is most notable for its hook, where The Biz bellows a rousing rendition of The Guess Who’s “American Woman.”
One of the dominant themes of I Need A Haircut is The Biz giving a lyrical middle finger to everyone who doubted him in his past. It’s territory he’s explored before on his previous albums, most notably on “The Vapors.” Three years later, Biz takes even more glee in mocking those who didn’t believe in him.
Biz’s feelings are readily apparent on “What Comes Around Goes Around,” the album’s first single. Over a sample of The Emotions’ “A Feeling Is,” he unloads on the object of his unrequited love in high school, blasting her for treating him poorly when they were young, but trying to cozy up to him now that he’s a household name. The song is occasionally mean-spirited, but Biz’s anguish and emotional pain feels genuine.
I Need A Haircut is at its most entertaining when Biz plays things incredibly fast and loose. “Let Go My Eggo” is a delightfully fun and sloppy track where Biz freestyles his way over an appropriately off-kilter sample of Allen Toussaint’s “Louie.” Biz also sounds like he’s putting things together off the head on “Romeo And Juliet,” where he sings the praises of The Bard’s most iconic work. Oddly, he seems to think the masterwork was conceived of as a film.
Biz is also charmingly goofy on “T.S.R. (Toilet Stool Rap),” his ode to finding lyrical inspiration while sitting on the commode. Biz is one of the few emcees who could pull off this type of subject matter without making it sound completely gross (word to “Pickin’ Boogers”). Like many, Biz confesses that his best ideas come to him while taking a dump, with lines like, “Whether I'm constipated or have diarrhea / I always come out with a funky fresh idea” and “Instead of moving towels, or moving vowels / Only think I'm doing is moving bowels.”
Haircut’s second half is remarkably strong and somewhat dark in musical tone. It features a pair of auto-biographical tracks, in keeping with the album’s theme of dissing his doubters. The first of the two, “I Told You,” focuses on his rapping career, as he speaks on achieving artistic success despite being dismissed by both critics and peers. Biz samples Donovan’s “Get Their Bearings” to great effect, with the song’s opening vocals functioning as a ghostly echo through much of the track’s length.
Biz takes things even further back on “Kung Fu,” exploring his upbringing and the genesis of his love for hip-hop. He recounts being shunned as an outsider in junior high and high school, but finding solace in walking the streets of L.I., going from house party to house party in hopes of rocking the mic. Biz does some of his “best,” or at least most effective, singing on the track, belting out a serviceable version of Lenny Williams’ “Lonely Soldier.”
Sandwiched in between these two origin stories is “Buck Wild,” the most outright grim song Biz ever released. Biz chronicles the reign of terror of the ruthless drug stick-up kid Dee. In contrast to the benevolent drug dealer he described on Biz Never Sleeps’ “My Man Rich,” he portrays Dee as a remorseless psycho who began his life of crime early and hasn’t let multiple stints in prison slow him down. Biz doesn’t glamorize the life at all, detailing his eventual downfall, brought about by “cold risking his ass for petty cash that didn’t last.”
“Take It From The Top” is one of the rarest birds on a Biz album: a posse cut. He brings in Backspin, Capital T, Force Fell, and Diamond Shell (Biz’s younger brother) to join him in kicking rough rhymes. Musically, the track is spartan, with the five emcees rapping over the raw drums and occasional guitar licks from The Brethren’s “Outside Love.”
Biz’s guests come particularly correct, as Capital T delivers the verse of his career, rapping, “Well, get a grip and, yeah, the Capital's rippin’ /More than just an ordinary style, cold flippin’ / Those that attempt to diss, or try to take this / Title away. What? I think you better forget it.” Diamond Shell, who released Grand Imperial Diamond Shell earlier in 1991, produced entirely by The Biz, is also in fine form. “So, once but not twice, this brother’s precise,” he boasts. “When it comes to snaking girls, I get as crooked as loaded dice.”
Unfortunately, Haircut’s most enduring legacy comes from the inoffensive “Alone Again.” The song is decent enough, with Biz narrating situations where he becomes the odd man out. If it wasn’t for the eventual fallout, I doubt the song would be remembered by most die-hard Biz fans.
Issues arose from the track’s sample source. Biz lifts the piano loop and re-uses the hook from Gilbert O’Sullivan’s 1972 song “Alone Again, Naturally.” Biz’s label, Cold Chillin’, apparently tried to clear the sample with O’Sullivan, who refused. It seems that he took himself and his sole hit entirely too seriously, not wanting it to be associated with a “comedy” rapper like The Biz.
In a move that shifted the course of hip-hop history, Biz and Cold Chillin’ decided to use the sample anyway. It led to a lawsuit, which in turn led to a fiasco of a civil trial. Instead of arguing on the grounds of fair use or explaining the cultural importance of sampling to hip-hop music, Cold Chillin’ lawyers’ used the extremely dubious legal precedent of “Hey, none of these other labels clear samples either, so why are you picking on us?”
The strategy turned out to be a disaster. The judge in the case not only ruled in favor of O’Sullivan, but in an unprecedented move, ordered every copy of the album to be removed from retail stores, making an example out of The Biz and Cold Chillin’. The judge also ruled that any form of sampling was illegal without express consent (and often exorbitant compensation) from the original artist. This ruling continues to affect the current hip-hop landscape, leading to often cost-prohibitive sampling costs and soulless sample-free production that haunts current mainstream hip-hop.
Whatever issues may have arisen with the lawsuit, I Need A Haircut deserves a better legacy than just being associated with a one-hit wonder like O’Sullivan. It’s best remembered as a natural progression of Biz’s growth as a rapper and producer. Three decades later, Biz is a universally revered, sadly departed hip-hop hero. Meanwhile, O’Sullivan is just the goof that once recorded “Alone Again.”