DJ Prince Markie Dee

Mark Anthony Morales is a founding member of the seminal rap group, The Fat Boys. He was not the DJ, he was a rapper and song writer. Under the name Prince Markie Dee with Dee Kool Rock-Ski and Buff Love the group exploded on the scene in 1984. They released seven LPs between then and 1991 when Morales left the group to go solo. By then they'd had three records go gold, and one platinum. The possibility of a runion seemed to die with 28-year-old beat boxer Buff Love in 1995.

Morales was born in 1968 and among the fat Boys he was the thinnest of the three. I can imagine after rapping 7 LPs of fat jokes he might want to do something little more serious. He produced records for Destiny's Child, Mariah Carey, and Mary J. Blige. He had two solo albums "Free" and "Love Daddy" neither of which did as well as his Fat Boys material.  That might be why he tried a new career in radio...

He debuted on 103.5 WMIB with an afternoon drive-time show. That year, Morales won the Best FM Radio Personality award from the New Times of Miami, the cities' weekly newspaper.  In 2008 when the station flipped formats from Urban AC to Urban Morales stayed put. A year later he was bumped to a night slot. But in 2010 when the station flipped to Spanish Hot AC as "Super X" the Cuban-born singer was ousted. Morales mocked the flip referring to it as "Spanish Oldies" via twitter.  He was right, since then the station flipped again to "The Beat" unable to find an identity in the Miami Market. More here.

Morales however had street cred, a resume and radio chops. So he crossed the street. His personal brand was worth something and 99.1 WEDR made him an offer. He remains there today, successful and a little slimmer. Fat Boys reunion rumors have continue but remain unrealized.

All Disco WMGE

Disco at least in name, is a four-letter word.

It was heinous, unnecessary, implacable and vile. It was an outlier, a lone straggler two decades behind a trend. Of course today it is forgotten, 103.5 WMGE in Fort Lauderdale, Florida was playing an all-disco format in late 1999. It was only in January of 2003 they gave up the ghost and went urban changing calls to WMIB.

In 1995 they were a simple AOR station, with the calls WSHE. The ratings took a nosedive, times were a-changing. In 1996 they became "The Planet" changing calls to WPLL. The playlist mixed Hot AC and some alt rock. Clear Channel bought the station fro Paxon Communications and tried an evil experiment, ALL-DISCO. On Tuesday July 13th 1999 that they launched "Hits of the 70s" and went disco with the new calls WMGE. They changed brands to 'Mega 103.'

They did mix in some disposable mid 1980s pop like the Human League, but they still kept a large number of disco singles in rotation like the Brothers Johnson's "Strawberry Letter 23" and the Andrea True Connection's "More, More, More." The biz struggled with the obstinance unsure of what to call the format: Urban Oldies? Rhythmic Oldies? Thankfully it went away before we had to decide.