Prince Markie Dee of The Fat Boys has reportedly died from congestive heart failure at the age of 52.
His fleeting was also established to be true by the likes of Fat Joe, Questlove, and Run The Jewels’ El-P, who all took to social media to mourn his death. Prince, born Mark Morales, rose alongside Kool Rock-Ski and the late Buff Love to fame as The Fat Boys in the early 1980s. They would become one of the first rap groups to release full-length albums and achieve mainstream popularity, finding success alongside groups like Run D.M.C. and Whodini.
The Fat Boys arose with their Gold-certified self-titled debut album in 1984, which is foreshown as a hip-hop classic. Its release would kick off a string of Gold albums that included 1985’s The Fat Boys Are Back and 1988’s Coming Back Hard Again. The group’s lone Platinum-certified album arrived in 1987: Crushin’, responsible for the group’s high-charting song, “Wipeout,” which peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Despite the group’s success, The Fat Boys broke up at the turn of the decade. Prince Markie Dee went on to be a successful producer and solo act in the 1990s. He dropped his debut solo album Free in 1992, which also birthed his first No. 1 single, “Typical Reasons (Swing My Way).” He also wrote and produced songs for Mary J. Blige, Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, Craig Mack, and more. On a more recent note, he served as a radio host and DJ for Rock The Bells, who shared their condolences in a tweet saying “voice and his presence can never be replaced.”
Members hip-hop community took to social media to mourn the loss of Prince Markie Dee.
