★★★★★
When a hip hop veteran goes misty eyed about the genre's golden age, it's a fair shot that features high in their reminiscing. Packed with high school joker cheek and twinkle-eyed positivity, the New Yorker rose to late-1980s prominence largely off the back of this sophomore set. Decent reason, then, to reanimate an out-of-print opus...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2013-04-23
★★★★★
Warrior is packed with the type of jams you'd expect from Biz: straight, simple beats laced with random rhymes. Its first single is generic club jam Let Me See You Bounce with Elephant Man, but comes back with Not a Freak featuring Eric Sermon. Catch Biz's goofiness on Chinese Food with a side of complementary production by J-Zone. Friends poses the question of its relation to his hit Just A Friend, but has that old familiar sequel disappointment...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
Despite sporting a clunky, off-the-cuff flow, nonsensical rhymes, and a seemingly shapeless physique, Biz Markie has been hip-hop's own loveable mad genius for over two decades now...
- pitchfork.com
2010-09-11
★★★★★
The list of platitudes you can attach next to Marcel Hall's name is certainly enough to make him a first year inductee into ANY Hip-Hop Hall of Fame. But who is Marcel Hall? Well you know him, as the B-I-Z, the Emmezah-Emmezah-A-R-K-I-E. If you heard these words in your head when you clicked on the review, you already know...
- rapreviews.com
2010-04-10
★★★★★
With a style that made Cold Chillin' records millions and a face that made just as many dermatologists millionaires too, Biz Markie became a star of the rap community. He's certainly recognizeable at any hip-hop function whether DJ'ing on the turntables, rapping on the microphone, or showing off the beatbox skills best remembered from "Make the Music With Your Mouth, Biz...
- rapreviews.com
2010-04-10
★★★★★
Stateside, Biz Markie's last full-length was distributed by Tommy Boy, who these days is only a shadow of its former self. Definitely more credit for bringing Biz back belongs to Germany's Groove Attack label, who after the initial contact (2001's "Turn Tha Party Out" single) went through two years of postponed release dates, ever-changing tracklistings and sample clearances until "Weekend Warrior" finally came to be, a decade after "All Samples Cleared...
- rapreviews.com
2009-07-21
★★★★★
The irony of this 2002 release is that any other Biz Markie album reviewed on this site would automatically be a 'Back to the Lab' entry. In fact, given that this LandSpeed release compiles some of his best songs from 1988's "Goin' Off" all the way through 1993's "All Samples Cleared," 90% of this album is perfect material for just such an entry...
- rapreviews.com
2009-07-21
★★★★★
Let's hear it for the return of Marcel Hall, clown prince of hip-hop and endearingly wretched singer -- remember his caterwauling on 1989's deathless "Just a Friend"? His funkiness is undimmed on his first record in ten years, Weekend Warrior: He ebulliently celebrates the dishes he adores ("Chinese Food") and pines for the departed Aaliyah and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes in "Turn Back the Hands of Time...
- www.rollingstone.com
2009-06-08