“I am preparing for an aortic artery repair procedure tomorrow morning,” read the post’s caption. He explained that he would be undergoing surgery at UCLA Medical Center. On April 30, Blow announced via Instagram his hospitalization for heart surgery.
The 20 greatest hip-hop tours of all time That means celebrating the greatness of its pioneers, not just for “paving the way” for what came after but also for the merits of their actual music. Part of recognizing the maturation of hip-hop would be to acknowledge how rich its legacy is. This is no longer a “young genre” per se it’s been four decades since the Sugarhill Gang and more than 25 years since The Chronic. As hip-hop is lauded for its ability to affect contemporary trends and tastes, it should also be recognized as a genre and art form that has a long history. Dubbed “The King of Rap,” Blow gained a much higher profile. His signing with Mercury gave him a platform most of his peers didn’t have. He broke through to pop and R&B audiences at a time when rap music was still seen as a novelty. Artists who laid the foundations in the days before Yo! MTV Raps and multiplatinum albums weren’t always visible outside of the 1970s and ’80s New York City, so acts like the Cold Crush Brothers and The Treacherous Three didn’t have the reach that their funk and disco contemporaries enjoyed - and so many of those acts can still sell tickets and enjoy major streaming numbers today.īut that’s why Kurtis Blow matters so much: He had the most mainstream appeal. It doesn’t help that the music born of the Bronx and spread via boutique labels like Sugar Hill and Enjoy had a fairly limited audience. Forty years after “Rapper’s Delight,” early hip-hop tends to be celebrated for its historical importance but not as classic music. But it’s not a stretch to suggest we show these artists the kind of love we’ve shown to beloved rock and soul legends of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.įlash turned 60 back in January 2018, and there wasn’t much celebration for the hip-hop legend.
It may not be realistic to expect early rap acts to suddenly be thrust into the epicenter of contemporary pop culture. With the possible exception of turntablist Grandmaster Flash, Blow is arguably the most famous of hip-hop’s pre-Run-DMC pioneers. Between 19, Blow delivered classic radio hits like “The Breaks,” “Christmas Rappin’,” “If I Ruled the World” and “Basketball” - songs that would be sampled and revisited by everyone from Nas to Next. Before forming Run-DMC, a teenage Run got his big start as Blow’s deejay, and Blow would collaborate with rhythm and blues stars René & Angela and produce tracks for the platinum-selling Fat Boys. His charisma made him hip-hop’s first major solo star, and his hooky songs got him airplay in places most of hip-hop hadn’t reached yet. Signing with Mercury Records in 1979, Blow was managed by an up-and-coming Russell Simmons and had instrumentalists Orange Krush playing on his tracks. 9, was the first rapper to sign with a major label and the first to become a mainstream star. Born Kurtis Walker in 1959, Blow, who turns 60 on Aug. But of all the early hip-hoppers who broke that ground, no one crashed the mainstream quite like Kurtis Blow.īlow’s musical legacy is without question. Widely lauded as the first hip-hop hit, “Rapper’s Delight” opened the floodgates for a host of rap records to gain mainstream appeal in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as artists like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, the Cold Crush Brothers, The Sequence, Busy Bee, The Funky 4 + 1 and The Treacherous Three took hip-hop from the South Bronx parks to the recording studio. That’s when the seminal 1979 single “Rapper’s Delight” celebrates its 40th anniversary. As a genre, hip-hop hits the big 4-0 this September.
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