Scatman John AKA John Paul Larkin is an American musician and singer who is known for combining Scat Singing and Dance Music. He is known for creating hits in the 90s such as "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)" and "Scatman's World".
Larkin was born in El Monte, California in March 13, 1942. He suffered a traumatic childhood mostly due to his stuttering when he first learned how to speak. At the age of 12, he began to learn the piano as well as the art of Scat Singing. These musical talents provided him artistic expression to compensate for his speech difficulties.
During the 70s-80s, Larkin became a professional Jazz pianist playing many engagements in Jazz Clubs around Los Angeles. (WIP)
In late 1998, Larkin was unfortunately diagnosed with lung cancer. Larkin continued his musical work despite being advised to take it easy. In June 1999, he released is fourth and final album as Scatman John, Take Your Time. Shortly afterwards, he was sent into intensive treatment.
Larkin passed away in his home in Los Angeles on December 3rd, 1999, at the age of 57.
Fame in the SM64 Community[]
Scatman John currently is often remembered mostly because of his appearances in early SM64 Machinima (especially in MM54321's early videos). Scatman's music is often used whenever there's a montage or a certain event that occurs through the videos.
He has appeared in MM54321's bloopers, such as "Time" and "The Secret of the LAVA Waterfall".
Unfortunately, in 2017, many of MM54321's videos which used Scatman's music were copyright claimed due to the new YouTube Copyright System. To compensate, MM reuploaded the copyrighted videos replacing all of Scatman's tracks with the remix from Japanese YouTuber, Sethel Zard (first used in MM's Channel's 10th Anniversary video).