Baby Huey

American singer known as the frontman for the band Baby Huey & the Babysitters, whose sole LP for Curtom Records in 1971 was influential in the development of hip-hop music.

When he was still in high school, due to a glandular disorder he weighed about 350 pounds (160 kg). His size contributed to his stage presence, but also to health problems. Nevertheless, he made light of his condition, adopting the stage name "Baby Huey" after Paramount Pictures' giant duckling cartoon character of the same name.

In 1963, Ramey, organist/trumpeter Melvyn "Deacon" Jones, and guitarist Johnny Ross founded Baby Huey & the Babysitters, which became a popular local act and released several 45 RPM singles. During the late 1960s, the band followed the lead of Sly & the Family Stone and became a psychedelic soul act. Huey began wearing an Afro and donned psychedelic African-inspired robes, and adding sing-song, self-referential rhymes to his live performances. According to his bandmates, Ramey's rhymes were very similar in style to those later popularized by rappers in hip-hop music.

By 1970, Ramey had developed an addiction to heroin, and his weight had increased to over 400 pounds (180 kg). He began regularly missing gigs or turning up late, and, at the insistence of his bandmates, briefly entered rehabilitation in the spring of 1970. In addition to the heroin problem, Ramey was also drinking.

On 28 October 1970 Ramey died of a drug-related heart attack at the age of twenty-six in a Chicago motel room.