Big Daddy Kane is a hip-hop legend and one of the most influential and skilled MCs in the genre’s history. His first two albums Long Live the Kane and 1989’s It’s a Big Daddy Thing are undisputed classics. RZA lists him as one of his Top 5 best MCs, while many place him alongside Rakim and KRS One as one of the finest rappers of the Golden Age of hip hop.
Starting out as a young Brooklyn battle rapper before joining Juice Crew alongside Marley Marl and Biz Markie, Big Daddy became an early influence on Jay-Z and the late Biggie Smalls. Cool, calm and confident, with buzzin’ lyrics and a distinctively fresh high top, Big Daddy was a guy that women wanted and men wanted to be like.
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He later changed his direction and become a key figure of the New Jack Swing era and picked up some film roles including Brown Sugar, Posse, and Gunman.
With his upcoming visit to Australia later this year that will include an appearance at Meredith Music Festival we thought we would share some lesser known Big Daddy knowledge.
His Name Is Not Really Big Daddy Kane
Kane was born Antonio Hardy on 10 September 1968, in the Bedford- Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, New York. An acronym for King Asiatic Nobody’s Equal Kane, comes from a fascination the young Antonio had with martial arts films. Big Daddy comes from the name of a character Vincent Price played in the film Beach Party, the 1963 film often cited as creating the beach party film genre.
His Little Brother’s Name Is Not Really Lil’ Daddy Shane
Big Daddy has featured his younger brother Lil’ Daddy Shane on several songs such as “Brother, Brother” and “Down the Line”. The songs aren’t very good. Shane currently has 25 people liking him on his Facebook profile.
He Didn’t Mind Taking Off His Shirt
Kane would go all out during live shows, stripping down to spandex biker shorts for the ladies, even soaking in a jacuzzi. The Big Daddy has posed with Madonna and Naomi Campbell in Madonna’s 1992 book Sex and in 1991 modeled for Playgirl. Many in the hip-hop community at the time didn’t know how many girls actually made up Playgirl’s readership.
He Helped Design These Hell Ugly Shoes
Teaming up with English footwear manufacturer B Walker, BDK helped design these one of a kind limited edition shoes. Only 500 pairs of the limited edition shoes were made. We feel weird using the word ‘only’ at the start of that sentence.
The Gold Chains In The “Ain’t No Half Steppin’” Video Are Real
“Rappers steppin to me, they wanna get some.” The opening line on arguably Kane’s greatest song sets up a musical missive, which is, essentially “you can’t fuck with Kane.” This is Kane at his finest. The chunky gold chains. The sharkskin suit. The massive four-finger ring. The confidence and charisma, the smartphone sized-four finger rings. With Marley Marl beat mixing The Emotions’ “Blind Alley”, Kane drops lines like “Rappers, you better be/Ready to die because you’re petty/You’re just a butter knife, I’m a machete.” The dude is on fire on this track.
He Did a Really Crappy Collaboration with Barry White
Big Daddy reinvented himself as a sultry ladies’ man and hooked up with the ultimate ladies man Barry White for collaboration on his flop third album Taste the Chocolate. On the track “All of Me.” There are lines such as “I wanna just lay on the floor and make love to your shadow” and “I want all of you from your head to your feet.I wanna taste everything from your lipstick to your toenail polish.”
He Supposedly Declared That He Had AIDS on Oprah
With no video evidence to back it up this is more conspiracy theory than fact but in the early 90s when the AIDS epidemic was at fever pitch Big Daddy Kane allegedly appeared on Oprah and tearfully confessed to have contracted AIDS. He later dismissed it on a verse from his 1993 album Looks Like a Job For …..
“paid the cost to be the boss
like with that HIV rumor they tried to toss
But I’m so good with the women that if I ever caught AIDS
a woman doctor’d find a cure just so she could get laid
Cause I’m too sexy for AIDS like Right Said Fred
So can touch you there, hah? Hah?”
Big Daddy Kane will perform at Meredith Music Festival.
