In the 1980s, Larkin was playing piano on cruise ships when he began singing during his performances. As a kid, he learned jazz piano, saying later that he “hid behind piano because I was scared to speak.” This Scatman - real name John Paul Larkin - was a California native who reportedly suffered from a severe stutter throughout his entire life. In another, more real way, it’s what happens when a middle-aged cruise ship pianist realizes that he can go “bop-be-bop” really fast. In a way, the song is emblematic of the blind optimism of the ’90s. That’s like saying that your music “combines a trumpet with nu-metal and the sound of a cat dying.”īut we’d be lying if we said that “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop” isn’t an earworm, and it was the culmination of Scatman John’s lifelong goal to make as much money as possible in the dumbest conceivable way. We imagine that whoever wrote that thought that it was an impressive blend of genres, but scat isn’t really a genre, and “hip hop effects” could mean literally anything. It combines scat singing with “modern dance music and hip hop effects,” per Wikipedia. There’s not really a nice way to say this: Scatman John’s music is horrible. You can practically smell the scat already, can’t you? Scatman John had an inspiring story (and awful music). Strap in, because we’re going to be scatting all over the place. We decided that this is as good of an excuse as we’ll ever get to write an article about these two scatmen and rate them as if we know anything about scat. Alternately, a lame internet writer can arbitrarily decide to declare one of them Scatman, and that’s where we come in. If there are two, they must meet, scat at each other, and fight to the death. So, which of the two singers is the real Scatman? According to legend, there can only be one Scatman on Earth at a given time. Crothers is the guy who flies across the country to get axed by Jack Nicholson. The other Scatman was, of course, Scatman Crothers, best known for his extensive voiceover work in the 1970s (he was the title character in Hong Kong Phooie and Scat Cat in The Aristocats ) and his excellent performance in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Okay, fine, he says he’s the Scatman about a thousand times, but there was already a Scatman. That changed for about three minutes in 1994, when Scatman John (John Paul Larkin) released “Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Da Dop Bop,” an upbeat dance tune that featured these lyrics:īop ba bodda bope / Be bop ba bodda bope / Bop ba boddaīop ba bodda bope / Be bop ba bodda bope / Ba-da-ba-da-ba-be bop bop bodda bopeīop ba bodda bope / Be bop ba bodda bope /Bop ba boddaīut was Scatman John actually the Scatman? He never makes that clear. Scat (the musical style, stop giggling ) gained prominence in the 1920s, but quickly became less prominent. Outside of music, scat is…well, look, we’re going to be talking about the vocal improvisation technique.

In music, scat is a vocal improvisation technique.

The skat man