The late Biz Markie's'Just A Friend' wasn't just by far his biggest hit.
The 1989 now-sing-along is one of the most unique and recognizable tracks in modern music history.
Biz's longtime friend and DJ Cutmaster DJ Cool V, who was involved in putting the song together, spoke to HipHopDX about the process.
“People called me crazy for letting him do that record,” Cool V tells DX. “I’m in the studio, he wanted to do it so bad, but I got to get the whole album done before the deadline. I was almost done except for maybe three or four records, because Biz didn’t like to stay in the studio. So, I made him fight and fight and do records and do records. He was coming along so good with the other records. I said, ‘OK, OK, you finally can do it.’
According to Cool V, the track was always bittersweet for him and Biz, because they never got paid for it.
“The sweetness comes in that we were able to perform it for almost 31 years,” he says. “And now comes the other side of it — we never made money off the record. I still haven’t got paid for that record.”
Cool V attributes this to an "incredibly bad"contract.
"It trickled down," he added. "So, we never made money off the record. But, we made the money off the shows and we had a great performing career.
But now it gets back to the bittersweet because every time I hear it, it’s going to remind me of Biz, but it’s also going to remind me of how I can’t make more money off of it. Everybody’s feeding their family off our work and we’ve never made money off that record.”
Biz Markie died last month at 57.