Kurtis Blow [Vinyl]

With his defiant, starkly pronounced vocal flow and tersely insightful lyrics, Kurtis Blow could almost be called rap's first breakout solo artist. From its initial exhortation to "clap your hands everybody," its implicit call to chant the chorus, and its simple yet undeniably inviting guitar riff and conga drum madness, along with Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" Blow's landmark single "The Breaks" helped introduce this rapidly growing underground style to a larger nation of souls who wanted to dance the night away.
However Kurtis Blow wasn't just 'The Breaks"; KURTIS BLOW, the eponymous album fashioned around the hit, contains track after track of early hip-hop splendor. The introduction "Rappin' Blow (Part 2)" is the perfect showcase for his deceptively simple and engaging rhyming style. Despite Blow's general association with party songs, heady notions aren't ignored, such as "Hard Times," a smoothed-out inspirational jam about overcoming obstacles. Keep an eye out also for "All I Want in This World," where he actually croons rather ably on perhaps the original rapper's love ode.