The Fat Boys: История американского хип-хоп трио

American hip hop trio

The Fat Boys were an American hip hop trio from Brooklyn, New York, who emerged in the early 1980s. The group was briefly known originally as the Disco 3, originally composed of Mark "Prince Markie Dee" Morales, Damon "Kool Rock Ski" Wimbley, and Darren "Buff Love" Robinson. The trio is widely known for using beatbox in their songs. The group opened doors for beatboxers like Biz Markie and Doug E. Fresh. The Fat Boys were one of the first rap groups to release full length rap albums, along with Run D. M. C., Whodini and Kurtis Blow. Beloved for their comedic, self deprecating rhymes, the group released seven studio albums, four of which went Gold by RIAA. The first two albums of the group were produced by Kurtis Blow. Successful singles included "Jail House Rap", "Can You Feel It? ", "Fat Boys", "Stick 'Em", "Don't You Dog Me", "All You Can Eat", "The Fat Boys Are Back", and "Pump It Up". The album Crushin' received a Platinum status due to their single "Wipeout", which was recorded together with the American rock group The Beach Boys. The next album, Coming Back Hard Again, repeated the formula of the previous one and received a Gold status due to the successful single "The Twist (Yo, Twist)", recorded together with American rock 'n roll singer Chubby Checker. The album also included the theme song for the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, which featured Robert Englund performing as Freddy Krueger. The group starred in three feature films in the 1980s: Krush Groove, Knights of the City and Disorderlies.

In 1983, The Disco 3 released their debut single "Reality". It was produced by James Mason, jazz guitarist and keyboardist of Roy Ayers' jazz funk band. Since the group did not have a manager, Stettler took over this position. Stettler took the group on a European bus tour, where he told them to gain more weight. The concerts ended at 12 o'clock in the evening, and they could not get to the hotel until two o'clock in the morning. Only places like McDonald's and Burger King were open, so the group members gained weight from this. Since so much was happening, the group members did not even notice this on the tour and did not consider themselves overweight. A party was later held for the renaming of the group at the Roseland Ballroom in New York.

Charlie Stettler introduced the group to rapper and producer Kurtis Blow, who helped them find their signature sound. To work on the album, Kurtis Blow recruited the drum machine programmers of Run D. M. C., Larry Smith and Davy "DMX" Reeves, who were considered two of the best at making songs at the time. "Stick' Em" was the first song they recorded with Kurtis Blow. The group's 1984 self titled debut album, Fat Boys, is considered by many to be the first hip hop album to feature the element of hip hop known as beatboxing. Darren "The Human Beat Box" Robinson was a pioneer in beatboxing.

One day in 1984, Russell Simmons stormed into Stettler's office and told him that he was going to have a festival titled Fresh Fest Tour '84, in which his groups and breakdancers would take part. Since Stettler raised $300,000 from Coca Cola to finance his 1983 contest, Simmons wanted Stettler to do it again. The young promoter could not get the beverage company to return, so he called a friend of his and asked him if there was anything the Swiss were trying to sell. The Swatch wristwatch turned out to be such a product. Stettler persuaded the company to finance a tour of $360,000, while the festival was renamed The Swatch Watch New York City Fresh Fest. Russell Simmons did not want to take the Fat Boys on the tour, because nobody had heard of them at that point. Stettler went to an old Tower Records store on 4th Street and Broadway, and handed out 5,000 flyers that read: "Guess the weight of the Fat Boys and the person who does wins 800 cans of Diet Pepsi and one dollar." Thousands of children lined up at the Tower Records store to participate. Stettler put the group members on the scale; at that time they weighed together. In the end, a boy from Harlem won. Channel 2 News filmed this event, including the delivery of the soft drink, but police did not respond when it was stolen a short time later. The next day, Stettler saw in the newspaper that The Jackson 5 was going to be reuniting at a concert in October 1984. He called his wife and part time partner, asking her to write a press release saying that the Jackson 5 have picked the then still unknown group the Fat Boys as their opening act. Stettler distributed this press release across the city. The next morning, Stettler and The Fat Boys appeared on the TV show Good Morning America. When the host turned around to The Fat Boys, they did not know what to say. They simply said: "Brrr, Stick' Em! Ha ha ha, Stick 'Em! ", due to it being the group's popular song at the time. The first concert of the tour took place on Labor Day, September 3, 1984. For 27 concerts in the United States, the organizers raised $3.5 million. The festival was accompanied by advertising on television. In 1985, this was followed by Fresh Fest II, which included the same acts, with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five replacing Newcleus.

At the time, the American office of the company Swatch was tasked with trying to advertise its product to American audiences. The company was known for using offbeat campaigns, and agreed to feature the Fat Boys in a commercial for the watches on MTV. The video "Brrr, Swatch ’Em!" was aired in December 1984. Swatch again featured The Fat Boys in a 1985 Christmas advertisement created by former MTV creative heads Alan Goodman and Fred Seibert. This commercial, "Swatch Watch Presents A Merry Christmas" was first broadcast in December 1985. These commercials were notable, because when they aired in December 1984, MTV did not feature many hip hop artists in their programming, having only started airing music videos from rap artists earlier that year with Run D. M. C.’s crossover hit, “Rock Box.” Due to the success of these commercials, they would become frequent guests on MTV, pioneering a space for hip hop artists to appear on the network and ultimately increasing hip hop's popularity and legitimacy with MTV's audience. Also because of these commercials, the group developed a reputation for their sense of humor. They starred in several feature films. Their first starring role came in the movie Krush Groove (1985), followed by a second, Disorderlies (1987), which also featured Ralph Bellamy as a millionaire invalid cared for by his good natured yet inept orderlies (played by the Fat Boys), with a cameo by manager Stettler.