Legendary hip hop artist, Marcel Theo Hall, aka Biz Markie, passed away on July 16th, from complications from Type 2 diabetes.
He is best known for his most successful single, Just A Friend (which reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1990), but it was his use of comedy and humor in his music that made him such an influential figure in hip hop.
This song is off Biz Markie’s 1988 album Goin’ Off, but he did not gain real commercial success until his 1989 single, “Just A Friend”.
Currently he has a recurring segment on the kids TV show Yo Gabba Gabba called “Biz’s Beat of the Day” and is appearing in their live show this weekend at the Shrine Auditorium. He also guest starred on Spongebob Squarepants as Kenny the Cat and on Adventure Time as Snorlock the Beatboxing Slug.
This Sunday (11/23), he will be one of the DJs at the Echoplex along with Peanut Butter Wolf and J.Rocc.
It’s opening night of the No Budget Film Festival and the feature film is The Past is a Grotesque Animal, a portrait Kevin Barnes of of Montreal, after which there will be a talk with the director and editor and later a cocktail reception with DJs and visual projections at the Vortex Immersion Dome. Events run all weekend- https://streamingmoviesright.com/blog/no-budget-film-festival/
Saturday
The annual Great LA Walk will take on the Valley walking 17 miles along Ventura Blvd from Woodland Hills to North Hollywood (free)- http://greatlawalk.blogspot.com/
Peter Hook & The Light are at the Fonda performing New Order’s Low Life & Brotherhood in their entirety and an opening set of Joy Division material- http://www.fondatheatre.com/events/detail/248789
Artist Pierre Huyghe and Emma Lavigne, curator of contemporary art at the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris, housed in the Centre Pompidou will be in conversation at LACMA- http://www.lacma.org/event/pierre-huyghe-conversation