Kurtis Blow

Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks" (#87 pop, #4 R&B, 1980) was one of the first records to popularize rap outside the form's native New York City. A graduate of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, Kurtis Blow was a disco DJ before he made records. He started out working at a Harlem disco in 1976, blatantly copping rhymed lines from an originator of rap, DJ Hollywood (Anthony Holloway). Later he worked with one of the masters of instrumental track editing, Grandmaster Flash (Joseph Saddler). In 1979, while he was working on his first single, “Christmas Rappin’,” the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” rocketed up the charts; a Mercury A&R rep heard what Blow was up to and signed him to an initial two-single deal. “Christmas Rappin’” was released at the end of the year and became - with “Rapper’s Delight” and the Fatback Band’s “King Tim III” - one of the first rap records on the market. It sold almost 400,000 copies; “The Breaks” sold over 600,000 copies nationwide. By the end of 1980, Blow was performing around the country with his partner Davy D (David Reeves) at the turntables. In 1981 he toured Europe.

Blow’s subsequent albums varied little. He was admired by a number of young rappers, including Run (Joe Simmons) of Run-D.M.C., who as a teenager had worked for Blow. Run-D.M.C. repaid him by doing a guest rap on Ego Trip’s “8 Million Stories.” By the time of 1988’s Back by Popular Demand, Blow’s lighthearted style was passé. In the early ’90s, Blow began promoting and performing at rap shows featuring the genre’s pioneers.

In 1995 he was hired as a DJ for an L.A. radio station, and in 1997 he produced a three-volume anthology for Rhino Records titled Kurtis Blow Presents the History of Rap, which gathered highlights of hip-hop’s growth. The rapper also returned to the R&B singles chart in 1997 with a remake of “The Breaks” (#58 R&B) with newcomer Nadanuf. Blow gave acting a shot in the summer of 2000 and starred in Echo Park - a musical about rap music’s formative years - at New York City’s Apollo Theatre.

from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)