Kurtis Blow - Throughout Your Years (1980)
Kurtis Walker (born August 9, 1959), known professionally by his stage name Kurtis Blow, is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer. Walker is the first commercially successful rapper and the first to sign with a major record label. "The Breaks", a single from his 1980 self-titled debut album, is the first certified gold record rap song. Throughout his career he has released 17 albums and is currently an ordained minister.
In 1979, at the age of twenty, Blow became the first rapper to be signed by a major label, Mercury, which released "Christmas Rappin'". It sold over 400,000 copies, becoming one of the first commercially successful hip hop singles. Its follow-up, "The Breaks", sold over 840,000 copies. He released ten albums over the next eleven years. His first album was Kurtis Blow, while his second was the top 40 R&B album Deuce. Party Time featured a fusion of rap nd go-go. Ego Trip included the hits: "8 Million Stories", "AJ Scratch", and "Basketball". His 1985 album, America, garnered praise for its title track's music video. From this album, the song "If I Ruled the World" became a top 5 hit on Billboard's R&B chart. By 1983, he moved into production.
He lived in Co-op City in the Bronx in the mid-1980s.
Besides his own work, Blow has been responsible for hits by The Fat Boys and Run DMC. Run began his career billed as 'The Son of Kurtis Blow'. Lovebug Starski, Full Force, Russell Simmons and Wyclef Jean all have been produced by, or collaborated with, Walker. Former label mates René & Angela had their R&B chart topping debut "Save Your Love (For #1)" was gift rapped by Blow. Walker produced, with Phillip Jones as co-producer and Dexter Scott King as executive producer, the song "King Holiday", celebrating the first Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a U.S. federal holiday inaugurated in January 1986.
He performed as an actor and in music coordination in several feature films including Leon Kennedy's Knights of the City and the hip hop film Krush Groove. He was host and co-producer for Das Leben Amerikanischer Gangs (1995), an international film production focusing on the West Coast gang scene. As host and associate producer for Miramax's Rhyme and Reason, he gave an informative account of the status of hip hop, while he participated in the three volume record release The History of Rap for Rhino Records in 1998. Blow also co-produced "Slippin, Ten Years with the Bloods" and won praises from Showtime for being the most viewed documentary in 2003. Blow was recently a producer for the Netflix show The Get Down.