Happy 40th Anniversary to The Fat Boys’ eponymous debut album Fat Boys, originally released May 29, 1984.
Were the Fat Boys a novelty group? There isn’t a straightforward answer. Most of the time, the term “novelty act” connotes groups like Alvin and the Chipmunks, or with respect to obscure hip-hop, 2 Live Jews or MC Pilsbury and The 4 Large Crew. So, yes, the Fat Boys were three heavyset individuals who made lots of music about their weight and their enjoyment of food. And yes, they very much played it for humor.
However, the trio of emcees put out some thoroughly entertaining music during the genre’s earliest stages that was as much “real” hip-hop as anything released by Run-DMC or Whodini or The Treacherous Three. Their self-titled debut album, released 40 years ago, remains one of the best releases of hip-hop’s post “Old School” era.
The Brooklyn born trio was comprised of Mark “Prince Markie Dee” Morales, Damon “Kool Rock Ski” Wimbley, and Darren “Buff Love” Robinson a.k.a. DJ Doc Love a.k.a. The Human Beat Box. After knowing each other for years, the crew came together as The Disco 3 in the early ‘80s, recording the 12-inches “Reality” and “Fat Boys.” Eventually they re-named themselves as the Fat Boys proper, deciding to embrace their image of being “one-thousand pounds put all together.”
The three hooked up with Kurtis Blow, hip-hop’s first superstar emcee. They actually made their first appearance dancing at the end of the rapper’s “Basketball” video. Blow would go on to mentor the group, producing the entirety of Fat Boys. It’s an album that’s musically rich and stylistically innovative. It’s also arguably the first hip-hop album to feature the art of beat-boxing, the technique of creating drum beats and other sound effects with one’s mouth.
Fat Boys was the first hip-hop record that I owned. As in, an actual vinyl record. I bought it at the Oakland Woolworths well after it was released; I was 9 years old at the time, so buying an album as soon as it came out wasn’t a priority. I’d been fascinated by “Jail House Rap” after hearing kids in grade school talk about it and hearing snatches of it on the radio. The song seemed weird and long and vaguely dangerous, with its tales of crime and incarceration. The intro, featuring the “Streets of Cairo” melody, and the subsequent long instrumental passages made it seem spooky.
Of course, listening to it with mature ears reveal the lyrics’ goofiness, as Markie Dee and Kool Rock Ski are jailed in the song for food-related reasons. Markie breaks into a closed pizza store, while armed with a shotgun no less, and gorges himself until he falls asleep face down on his plate; next thing you know he’s headed upstate. Kool Rock Ski fares no better, as he ends up behind bars after refusing to pay for his massive meal at Burger King, which apparently had table service back in 1984.
But the song’s inherent goofiness in no way detracts from the quality of “Jail House Rap.” In fact, it enhances it. Moreover, what’s also remarkable is the fact that both of those ridiculous tales are juxtaposed with Markie Dee’s poignant closing verse laying out the sad realities of prison. However, I doubt even back in 1984 prisoners were still breaking rocks with a “big, heavy hammer,” like something out of I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932). The song also features a lengthy piano solo by Don Blackman, a jazz/soul pianist who worked with Roy Ayers and accomplished solo artist in his own right.
Listen to the Album:
The album’s title track and “Can You Feel It?” are both more traditional old school party-oriented rap, and were both successful singles for the album. Unlike most singles today, both have mammoth run times, each clocking in at nearly seven minutes. But both were also hit singles during a time when lengthy dance tracks were the norm. Hence, the group constructed both songs to allow for lengthy verses by Markie Dee and Kool Rock Ski, beat box solos by Buffy, instrumental breakdowns, and all the accoutrements that went along with rap music in the mid 1980s.
The album’s best moments come from “Stick ’Em” and “Human Beat Box,” a pair of tracks likely products of the same recording session. The trio strip down hip-hop to its rawest essence on both entries, with Markie Dee and Kool Rock Ski rhyming over Buff Love’s beat-boxing, with a few spare scratches thrown in here and there. Markie Dee and Kool Rock Ski continually trade verses throughout the song, with Markie Dee rapping, “That I'm prince of rap, the king of hip-hop / And when my mouth starts to moving, I will not stop,” and Kool Rock Ski boasting that he’s a “Master of disaster, the chief of East / And when I'm on the mic I’ll make your nature rise/ Hip-hop often, I’m qualified.”
“Human Beat Box” is the group’s dedication to Buffy’s ample skills making the music with his mouth. Make no mistake, with his ability to create “drum beats” and sound effects with his vocals, “the man with the beats to cause a disaster” sounded unlike anything ever heard on record at the time. “With a million watts of power coming out his mouth,” Buffy goes buck wild on both this song and “Stick ’Em,” performing the type of vocal tricks that sounded almost alien more four decades ago.
“The Place To Be” is a park-jam styled track relocated into a studio, with the group members trading freestyle-esque verses and old school routines. While Kool Rock Ski asserts that he’s “too hot to handle” more times than I can count, Markie Dee delivers a verse about the exploits of Spider-Man, which is executed with amazing conviction, something that hip-hop misses these days. The song also features the album’s only full-length verse from Buffy. And while he’s at his strongest beat-boxing, he was pretty good at rapping as well.
The album ends with “Don’t You Dog Me,” another silly but entertaining artifact of the mid 1980s. With its bubbly, carnival-like beat, Markie Dee shares a tale of heartbreak, pining for the girl who “tore my heart from the vine, stem, and root.” The frequent “Arfs!” that are frequently incorporated into the song add further bits of humor to the endeavor. The crew performed the song in the film Krush Groove (1985), a film featuring a fictionalized version of hip-hop’s ascendancy during the 1980s.
Fat Boys was definitely a commercial triumph for the group, one of the first hip-hop albums to be certified Gold. The trio would continue to release an album nearly every year for a while. But even though they might not have started off as a novelty group, Fat Boys began to lean more and more on their image as overweight rappers on the songs, and began to record more and more gimmicky tracks. Songs like “Wipeout” featuring The Beach Boys and the rap remake of “The Twist,” complete with Chubby Checker, were both blatant cash grabs and were cringe-inducing from the moment of their release.
The Fat Boys also briefly tried to become a trio of comedic film stars, starring in Disorderlies (1987) directed by Michael Schultz (now a prolific TV director who helmed the aforementioned Krush Groove, The Last Dragon, and Cooley High). As entertaining as it when I was 12, I’m well aware that they weren’t the reincarnation of the Three Stooges.
Even though the group eventually got a little too caught up in their own gimmick, the Fat Boys’ first album is a clear artistic success, as vital as anything released during hip-hop’s early days. And while these days a group couldn’t release a song about slipping into a food coma from eating too much pizza and still be taken seriously, The Fat Boys were a clear example of how personality goes a long way. More groups could and should study their legacy to learn how to balance making serious music while not taking themselves too seriously.
LISTEN:
Editor's note: this anniversary tribute was originally published in 2019 and has since been edited for accuracy and timeliness.