That humid night, I realized I had forgotten how much I loved and missed performers like Gift of Gab, the Fat Boys, and Raekwon. The original funky diabetics. The gangsters and goofs whose performances entertained us while at the same time cultivated respect. They may have looked like giant teddy bears, but some of them were scary as shit. But what happened to them? Where did all the fat rappers go?
Of course, not all rappers in the past were fat, and not all rappers now are skinny, but after the mid-’90s, the hip-hop scene began to slim down noticeably. In the early ’90s there was Biz Markie, Chubb Rock, E-40, Heavy D, Scarface, Raekwon, and Notorious BIG, among others. Then, of course, the mid-’90s produced the fat rapper power couple Fat Joe and Big Pun. But the millennium saw the last of the truly fat rappers: Gift of Gab, J-Live, Bone Crusher, and Fatman Scoop. By around 2005, Rick Ross, Joell Ortiz, and Gorilla Zoe were some of the only ones left. In 2007 the transformation was made complete when Dr. Dre shocked the music world by showing up on stage at the MTV Music Awards looking like a professional bodybuilder. And Eminem, 50 Cent, and the beautiful D’Angelo? They all went through chubby phases of their own, but ended up looking sculpted. Even Fat Joe is just an average Joe now.
Over the years, the world of hip-hop lost a handful of members to health complications as a result of their size, most notably Buffy of the Fat Boys, Heavy D, and Big Pun. The failing health of some of the world’s most beloved performers served as motivation for rappers to change what they put in their bodies.