There’s rarely a day that goes by that Big Daddy Kane doesn’t think about Biz Markie. Whether he’s making an appearance on Drink Champs, performing at a show, beatboxing on Yo! Gabba Gabba or crafting Instagram tributes, his fellow Juice Crew alum is never too far from his mind.
Biz died in 2021 following complications stemming from Type 2 diabetes. He was only 57. It was an understandably horrible day for Kane, who loved Biz like a brother. At his funeral, held on August 21, 2021 at Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts in Patchogue, Long Island, New York, Kane had an epiphany.
“People always ask artists what they’d be doing if they wasn’t rapping or singing,” he says. “I’ve always felt like that was a stupid question because it’s like, ‘I don’t fucking know.’ I am rapping. I made it. This is what I’ve been doing my whole life. I succeeded. That’s a question that never really made too much sense until his funeral. When they closed that casket, the first thing that came to my mind was, ‘What the hell would I be doing right now if it wasn’t for this dude?’”
After all, it was Biz that welcomed Kane into the Juice Crew. It was Biz who encouraged him to make rapping his career. It was Biz who showed him it was possible.
Twenty-year-old Biz and 16-year-old Kane met in 1984 as they battled inside Brooklyn’s Albee Square Mall. From a battle rap perspective, they were enemies; one wanted to lyrically demolish the other. So when Biz expressed interest in forming a friendship, Kane was somewhat shocked.
“My first impression was like, ‘Wait a minute—you wanna be friends?’” he remembers. “I had never battled no one before and they want to be my friend.”
The battle had started inside the mall, but security swiftly kicked them out and they were forced to continue outside.
“We were battling with regular rhymes and he realized he couldn’t keep up with those type of rhymes, so he switched up to funny rhymes about girls,” he continues. “He said this funny rhyme and the crowd started laughing, and then I came back with a funny rhyme about a girl, too. The crowd was laughing, but he also laughed. He started cracking up and says, ‘That’s dope,’ and repeated one of the lines I said. Then he was like, ‘You should get down with me.’”
Big Daddy Kane eventually joined the Juice Crew alongside Biz, Mr. Magic, Roxanne Shanté, Marley Marl, MC Shan, Mister Cee, Kool G Rap, Masta Ace, Craig G and others. In 1988, they released the ultimate posse cut “The Symphony” on Cold Chillin’ Records, which put Kane on a path to solo success with lines like, “Put a quarter in your ass ‘cause you played yourself.”
Over the course of two years, he released his now-classic solo debut, Long Live the Kane (1988), his gold-certified sophomore effort, It’s a Big Daddy Kane (1989), and Taste of Chocolate (1990). He continued with Prince of Darkness in 1991, Looks Like a Job For…in 1993 and Daddy’s Home in 1994. Along the way, he established himself among the upper echelon of MCs by continually flexing his lyrical aptitude—both live and in the studio. His (what appeared to be) last album, Veteranz Day, arrived in 1998. By all intents and purposes, it looked like he was done in the studio. The ever-changing state of the music business left him uninspired to hop in the booth—until now.
In 2025, Kane revealed he was working on what will be his final album, the aptly titled Curtain Call, after finding inspiration from LL COOL J, who had released the F.O.R.C.E. (Frequencies of Real Creative Energy) album a year prior. And though he ran into a sample clearing hiccup, the album is back on track and should be ready for release either at the end of the year or in early 2027. Of course, people don’t want to hear that it’s his last album, but Kane is secure in the legacy he’s already built.
“I’m content,” he says, confidently. “I hadn’t been in the studio to focus on a full Kane album in years. I haven’t sat and thought about a whole Kane album since ’95. Music has changed so much and I’m cool. I want to give the real, true Kane fans something that they could appreciate and get an understanding of what I’m about right now and possibly create some sort of closure, but other than that, I’m good.”
It’s no secret streaming has drastically changed the music industry, and it’s often impossible for new music to make a dent on the charts unless you’re Drake or Taylor Swift. Erykah Badu and The Alchemist’s new album Before the World Blows: The Abi & Alan Experiment, for example, was expected to move less than 10,000 units in its opening week despite their immense talent and impact on the culture. These days, strategies for legacy artists look a little different—it’s all about the core fans.
“If you have 1.5 or 2 million followers on social media, focus on those 250,000 or 300,000 that might actually be true fans and support your career,” he says. “Target them and do what you got to do independently.”
Kane laughs thinking about what Biz would likely say about Curtain Call.
“I think he would love it,” Kane says. “But I’m pretty sure that one of the songs he would listen to and say something like, ‘You know I had that record first’ [laughs].”
Wherever “the Clown Prince of Hip-Hop”—as he was affectionally known—is, he’s likely got a smile on his face and love in his heart. “This the person that made me realize there’s more to hip-hop than just going around from project building to project building and block party to block party wanting to battle people,” he says. “Biz made me realize that I can make this a career and be great at it. He made me see that I can still be a hip-hop student and learn more about performing and making records while having a sense of humor in my rhymes. He made everyone feel special.”
