You may not have noticed, but there seems to be some kind of conspiracy to eliminate the “big-boned” rap star. It’s bad enough that the fast food spots are slinging salad in an attempt to halt the Subway juggernaut, but now fat rappers seem to have gone the way of the laser disc. Was it so long ago that cholesterol-charged lardo’s such as Heavy D were proudly making songs like “Overweight Lover” and “Chunky But Funky”? From the Fat Boys to Chubb Rock, B-Fats and the 2 Bigg MC, the 80’s were a celebration of all things deep-fried. The trend got so big that Arsenio Hall recorded an entire parody album under the alias of Chunky A! Even the ladies got involved, as KRS-One’s super-sized ex-wife Ms. Melodie and The Overweight Pooch attempted to be large and in charge.
Could it be that the untimely deaths of two of the most notorious fatties in hip-hop was seen as something of a wake-up call to future donut-scoffing MC’s? Sure, Biggie Smalls was a proud fat man with no intention of curbing his cake intake as he blazed up the charts during his reign at the top, and his murder had no obvious connection to his obesity, but you can’t help but think that a slimmer man might have made for a harder target for those LA hitmen. No such grey area exists in the case of Big “Moon Dog” Punisher, who was blessed with a gift for amazing multi-syllable verses and a hunger for all things filled with custard. In between pistol-whipping his wife and eating three whole BBQ chickens for a breakfast, the big fella weighed 700 pounds at one stage!
Whether a direct result of these big units croaking or pressure from their publicists, a number of flab factories have traded love handles for athletic sandals in an attempt to slim down. Timbaland and Missy Elliot have both shed major pounds in recent times (although it could be argued that this is more of a result of massive pill popping rather than fitness regimes), and just recently KRS-One announced that will be following Biz Markie by appearing on Celebrity Fit Club! This madness is clearly the work of notorious light-weight Snoop Dogg and the Scientologists. We as the record buying public need bring back fat rap before valuable institutions such as KFC are lost forever.
