The Fat Boys

These days the Fat Boys are regarded as just a friendly novelty rap group, but I thought they were awesome. I was four and I loved them overweight rappers to pieces. They were my first introduction to beatboxing and they made me want to have a cool nickname. Twenty years later I still haven’t come up with a good one, but I hope it’s going to be as fly as Kool Rockski.

It’s sad that they will never be considered a big influence in rap. I really think they were a major rap act. Stop laughing at me. The Human Beat Box was one of the beatbox pioneers! They weren’t a rap group because they were fat, they were three friends who happened to all be big. So the fat thing wasn’t just an amusing gimmick: they were entering rap contests and winning as the Disco 3 before they called themselves the Fat Boys. In fact, they won their record contract at one of those contests.

They had hits with Chubby Checker and The Beach Boys and for a while in the early eighties they were the biggest thing in rap. I was listening to some of their songs and they still sound really fun! Their lyrics were mostly harmless and not very challenging, but they knew how to entertain a wide variety of people.

This is not a typically silly Fat Boys song but it’s one of my favorites because it’s a good example of the late Darren “Buffy The Human Beat Box” Robinson’s skills. It’s been sampled by the Beastie Boys and there are apparently a bunch of versions of this song. This seems to be one of the earlier ones, because they still call themselves the Disco 3.

   The Fat Boys - Stick ‘Em