Former Fat Boys
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Former Fat Boys are a Rap group that hails from Geneva, Illinois in the West Suburbs of Chicago and Champaign, Illinois that formed in 1999, comprised of $ucksex (pronounced Success, also known as NBL), Hard Corey, Dirty Erik and DJ Tanner. While most of their popular songs are comedic, they also have songs that delve into serious and political subjects. Former Fat Boys appear on the Racheer Records label and are generally considered part of the Nerdcore hip hop genre.
[edit] Albums
Their debut album, Rocky Loves Emily, was released in 2005.
Rocky Loves Emily was re-released in June of 2006 as a remastered version featuring a bonus song from their second album Ho Touchdown, which includes the song they submitted to be the theme of the film Snakes on a Plane.
The tracklist for Rocky Loves Emily is:
1) Intro (Rocky Loves Emily)
2) makeOUTparty
3) Hodown
4) Ice Ice Baby
5) piggyback.miss.that
6) My Side Of the Tracks
7) She's Got A Boyfriend
8) She's Getting Ready
9) Turn Your Music Down
10) Shake Ya Ta Tas
11) Duke Boy Call To Arms
12) Dukes of Hazzard (Where's the Party At?)
13) I'M A DINOSAURus (2005 Hard Corey Remix)
14) misMOSH
15) Imaginate
16) (I Like) Young Girls
17) Hey Ma! I'm A Rapper!
18) Jimmy Stewart Rocking the Mic
19) Slumber Party!
Tell Your Friends is a mixtape / EP that was released in 2005 and is available only with the purchase of a CD through the official site. Though the band refers to it as an EP, it is over 80 minutes long.
They also regularly produce singles for mixtapes that they give away for free on their official site.
[edit] Miscellaneous Information
Former Fat Boys make many references to Eminem in their songs. For example, Pete, the narrator of the song I'm a Dinosaurus has a confrontation with Eminem leading to a studio battle. Also, in their song MisMosh, which has the same tune as Eminem's song mosh, Eminem is among the list of celebrities at the end of the song who the group implores to "Shut the fuck up" about political matters.
The group also has ties to Something Awful. I'm a Dinosaurus won a contest on Somethingawful.com, and the song Jaego mentions Lowtax, the nickname of Somethingawful's webmaster, Richard Kyanka, and is about another rapper who is presumably a member of the Something Awful Forums.
Photos released on the group's website have also revealed that their recording studio is made out of PVC pipes and sleeping bags.
The lead rapper, $ucksex was formerly known as CK Boy doing off-kilter parodies of pop hits from bands like Britney Spears (Oops! I'm Pregnant Again), Eminem (The Real Slim Lady), and Jay-Z (Big Gimpin). CK Boy sat atop the comedy charts on MP3.com for a few months resulting in nearly 1 million downloads as well as major morning shows across the country remaking his poorly produced parodies. These parodies can still be found on file sharing networks across the internet and are often falsely attributed to "Weird Al" Yankovic.
Former Fat Boys started playing live shows in 2004 while at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ben Garbe, AKA $ucksex, the lead rapper, was then known as Shampooh, the stunt-man on the morning show "The Modern Rock Alarm Clock" on Champaign's 107.1 WPGU-FM. Shampooh/$ucksex stayed with the station and eventually hosted the the nightly show "Nights with Leslie and Shampooh" from 2003 to 2005. Ironically the station was not a hip-hop station, but an Indie rock station. The show often demonstrated a racous humor that is front and center on the Rocky Loves Emily from segments like "That One Part of the Show where two new songs battle and the one that gets the most votes comes back tomorrow night to battle another song" and "The Ricky Martin Report", a nightly recap of the fictitious adventures of Ricky Martin. WPGU often featured $ucksex as a guest on its hip-hop show Beats and Rhymes and he would often premier new tracks on the show. $ucksex also presented (as Shampooh) the best hip-hop artist award at the Champaign Local Music Awards and performed with the Former Fat Boys at the ceremonies in April of 2005.
The other major member of the group is Hard Corey, also known as Corey Wills the frontman for Chicago-based indie rock act Inspector Owl. Dirty Erik rarely appears on-stage as he is attending medical school in Chicago, IL.
In 2005 and 2006, the Former Fat Boys played a series of shows with mc chris. However, unlike mc chris, the Former Fat Boys have been very supportive of the Nerdcore hip hop community, though there has been some question within the community as to whether they are truly nerdcore. In their bio on their official site, they claim to be "Mainstream hip hop rap meets nerdcore and gives your daughter the best orgasm of her life". In interviews the Former Fat Boys have said that they wish to bring a geekier feel to mainstream hip-hop. They have however, committed to appearing on the next CD in the Rhyme Torrents - The Nerdcore Hip-Hop Compilation CD Project.
In the summer of 2005 the Former Fat Boys appeared on MTV's The Reality Show. They were not chosen as contestants, but were featured heavily on the first two episodes and their song Hodown was used by MTV in the show as well as in ads promoting the show. Concert footage of the band was also licensed and used by MTV.
Former Fat Boys have also appeared on Pacific Coast Hellway, a show on Sirius Satellite Radio channel 102 as well as having their song "Snakes on a Plane!" featured in promos promoting both Sirius Radio and the New Line Cinema release Snakes on a Plane.
According to their official site they are also contributing songs to a traveling anti-drug/abuse prevention theater group run by a charity called the R.Ed.I. Foundation based in Batavia, IL. The charity is the subject of an MTV documentary in conjunction with Jennifer Lopez's Dancelife reality show.
Their music video for the song Slumber Party! which they provide freely on their site and on YouTube! can be seen occasionally on MusicPlusTV the all music video internet TV network.
Members of the group have also been involved with the DVD The Enormous Adventure of the Guys Gone Wild, a video of pranks that parodies Jackass (TV series) in a style similar to VH1's Behind the Music.
