Originally published in Vulture on July 23, 2021.
Around the turn of the century, ViacomCBS property VH1 pivoted to its “Music First” era, punctuated by its original programs like The Greatest, a compilation show that purported to count down influential cultural and musical moments — from the “100 Greatest Love Songs” to the “40 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of the ’90s” — from a position of expertise and authority. One episode that aired in 2002, “100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders,” featured ubiquitous flash-in-the-pan classics like Los Del Rio’s “Macarena” (which topped the list) and Deee-Lite’s dance hit “Groove Is in the Heart.” Rounding out the list at No. 81 stood “Just a Friend,” the smash hit from Marcel Theo Hall out of Long Island, better known as the late New York legend Biz Markie. Known for its intentionally scratchy and warbly refrain — a fortuitous result of requested singers failing to show up to the recording session — and simple yet distinct C-major melody, the track, alongside the debut of his album The Biz Never Sleeps, went gold in 24 hours.
Much of what informed the popularity of the single was endemic to both the time in which it was released and the persona of Markie himself. The lyrics, depicting a lamentable tale of thwarted affections, are delivered in a deliberate, narrative style that leaves the listener both bemused and curious about the veracity of the sequence of events (Markie, for the record, has always claimed his lyrics to be renditions of real stories: “I didn’t know how to write no other way,” he said). The corresponding video serves as a capsule in time to a specific era in Black American urban history: Markie is resplendent with rope chains and Cuban links, donning a Georgetown sweater that hearkens back to a time when the university’s basketball team felt indelible to the Black cultural fabric of the 1980s, generating stars like Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, and later Allen Iverson. For nearly half of the video, Markie engages in jocular theatrics, switching into a powdered wig and embodying a character that is equal parts Mozart and James Brown. These dismembered pieces — self-deprecating lyricism, dynamic percussion, and whimsical, referential presentation — boiled together to help establish Markie’s unofficial status as the self-declared Clown Prince of Hip-Hop.
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