The Tapes Archive

Marc Allan: How you doin’?

Kurtis Blow: Not bad, I’m blessed, you know, what can I say?

Marc Allan: Yeah, well, good! Yeah, you have a quote in this press kit about how… Let me see exactly what it is. “The driving force behind the creation of hip-hop was God.” You really think God cares about what pop music does?

Kurtis Blow: Excuse me?

Marc Allan: Do you really think God cares about pop music?

Kurtis Blow: Oh yeah, God has his hand in everything. God created everything. He uses people as his tools in the creation of many different things that control the world! The way we think and how we live, and a lot of times, Satan gets in there and messes everything up. But still, God was the creative influence and the motivating factor behind what I’ve done, for sure! I used to always think it was all me, you know? I had such a big ego until God humbled me, and made me realize that he was the one behind everything I did!

Marc Allan: How did God humble you?

Kurtis Blow: Well, see, God has a way of taking everything from you to bring you back down to Earth. And he has a way of just showing people, giving them signs to let people know that he is real, and that he is the Creator, and he is the Almighty, the omnipotent, you know?

Marc Allan: Did you have everything taken from you?

Kurtis Blow: Well, let’s put it this way-

Marc Allan: I mean, without getting too personal.

Kurtis Blow: Huh?

Marc Allan: Without getting… Well, I don’t wanna barge into your personal life, but-

Kurtis Blow: Yeah, let’s put it this way, the music industry is a very up-and-down industry. I had it all once, and right now, I have nothing! I mean, let’s just put it bluntly! I had it all, and then I lost it all! I mean, I didn’t lose it, but I just, I quit, I let it go! It was my time to just say, “Goodbye,” and I left the industry, I stayed away, purposely, and I raised my family. I have a family of five, been married for 14 years. Today is my wedding anniversary, 14 years being married.

Marc Allan: Happy Anniversary, that’s cool!

Kurtis Blow: Thank you very much. And a lot of times, people need to go and get back down to Earth, when they’re way up there. This is what gives them that hunger and that energy and that motivating factor, to make them stand up on their two feet again, and go out there and really work hard, and struggle, to really get things done, and get back up there on top. ‘Cause when you’re on top, you think that you’re there forever and you think that you’re the best thing since sliced bread, and you also think that you could never fall. But I was very wrong. A lot of people can be, you know?

Marc Allan: I wanted to do two stories with you. One is, I’m doing this piece about, the assignment was, how do you give depth to your record collection, and so what I wanted to ask you is, if you’re listening to, let’s say today like the Wu-Tang Clan or Puff Daddy, or Notorious B.I.G., Master P, what should you go back and listen to?

Kurtis Blow: If you wanna go back, I think the late ’60s, and listen to the early James Brown stuff, not the early James Brown stuff, he started in the ’50s, we know that, but the middle years of James Brown, when he really put together that hip-hop beat, which is so synonymous with the format of making a rap record till today. Also, the Isley Brothers, the early Jackson 5, Jimmy Castor, and the Jimmy Castor Bunch.

Marc Allan: Really! Oh my goodness! Okay.

Kurtis Blow: You gotta pick up a couple of one of his old albums, like “E-Man Boogie” or “A Groove Will Make You Move,” that album. This man is a genius! He was one of my heroes. But the early Jackson 5 stuff is good, too! They had some funky, funky beats in there that kids just don’t know about.

Marc Allan: What was it about those early records that hip-hop picked up on, and ran with? Is it just the beats and the grooves, or is there somethin’ more about it, that-

Kurtis Blow: It had real soul. I mean, it’s so apparent, it’s just a feeling, and it’s just a spirituality about the song that was so funky, not just the break. Of course, the break was the most important part of a b-boy song, and the break was when everyone did their best moves. The breaks of a record were when the b-boys did these moves and had a circle of people around ’em. They created circles of people around… You’ve seen that in “Saturday Night Dance Fever.”

Marc Allan: Oh, sure.

Kurtis Blow: Remember that?

Marc Allan: Right.

Kurtis Blow: You know, everyone’s dancing in the club and then there’s just one guy who’s the best dancer, him and a girl are just gettin’ off, and everyone stops and they just create a circle around ’em, and the two just go off, okay? That’s the same thing, the feeling you get from these songs. And CD number one of the “Kurtis Blow Presents The History of Rap,” you get that feeling of being there in a club and you see the best dancer just create a circle of people around him, and he’s turnin’ the club out, everyone is happy.

Marc Allan: Yeah, the thing that strikes me about listening to those three discs is, even a really serious and important song like “The Message,” it’s got a bit of a lightness to it. I mean, those records just were more fun, I think, than a lot of hip-hop is today. What do you think?

Kurtis Blow: Yeah, well, that’s when we started, and we had a code of ethics to make sure there was no profanity. Of course, we were from the ghetto, just like a lot of kids are from today. We had the same anger that the kids of today have, you know? But we just chose to keep it wholesome, so that we could open the doors for guys of today to really just let their hair down and twist it in its purest form, just rappin’ like they don’t give a fuck.

Marc Allan: Are you disappointed with the direction they’ve taken?

Kurtis Blow: No, no, I’m not. I’m not, but I foresaw it. That’s why I got out of the business, and I couldn’t compete anymore because I just chose not to go down that road! And you know, I’m not a saint, but I am a born-again Christian, and what I’ve learned from religion within the last five years is not to judge people. If you judge people, you get judged in the end! And it’s like, I love everybody, and I just pray for their salvation, that’s all!

Marc Allan: When you were first starting out and rap was in its infancy, you really knew that it was gonna get as big as it’s gotten?

Kurtis Blow: Oh, yes, definitely.

Marc Allan: Really.

Kurtis Blow: When I first started, there was a vision, and I knew that rap was an art form, a form of communication, a form of self-expression. As a matter of fact, I went to college and majored in communications and speech broadcasting so that I could sit back and analyze everything about rap. Because rap, to me, is sort of like a speech. You have your intro, your conclusion, I mean, your intro, body, and conclusion. You have different forms of speech, it’s like extemporaneous speeches, which are speeches that people do without any rehearsal, just off the top of their head. That’s like a freestyle, you know? You have your demonstrative speeches that talk about any different subject, like basketball or Christmas. That’s a demonstrative rap, basketball rap! You got your ego-trip rap, people just talk about themselves, then you have your… I put ’em all in these different little categories, gangster rap, you know, all these different categories, they’re sort of like speeches, they’re speeches, and rappers are orators! So I sat back and I studied all the greatest orators of our time, JFK, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Barbara Jordan. And the qualities in these great speakers is what I mimicked and made part of my own image, and my own character, and my own rap style. So it’s very important, articulation, delivery, your vocal tonality, style, the whole nine yards. College was very, very instrumental in my success, and a lot of people should take heed to that, but-

Marc Allan: Where’d you go to school?

Kurtis Blow: CCNY.

Marc Allan: Oh, great, right.

Kurtis Blow: Yeah, in New York. So it was definitely, definitely something that I knew was gonna be around for a while, and I banked on it.

Marc Allan: Yeah, so you must laugh now, when you hear people talk about how rap is gonna fade away, or it’s just a fad, or something like that.

Kurtis Blow: Right, oh, no, I stopped laughing, they don’t say that anymore.

Marc Allan: Oh, I had somebody say it me last week, and I said, “Let’s see, it’s been around 20 years. You think that’s a fad? I don’t think that a fad!” You know? I think that’s gonna be around forever, you know?

Kurtis Blow: Right.

Marc Allan: One of the things that you do in the liner notes is you list off some of the major influences in the creation of hip-hop, and you mentioned… I don’t know, there were a bunch of ’em that I had never heard of, and I must admit to bein’ a lily-white guy at times and that, but I’m just wondering, how do feel, are you surprised, do people generally know Pete DJ Jones and Kool DJ Herc? I mean, are these names that are well-known?

Kurtis Blow: Nah.

Marc Allan: No, okay.

Kurtis Blow: I mean, maybe Kool Herc is about the most well-known, or Grandmaster Flash and Bambaataa.

Marc Allan: Right.

Kurtis Blow: People generally know those guys.

Marc Allan: Yeah, I knew them.

Kurtis Blow: The other seven? Nah.

Marc Allan: No? Okay.

Kurtis Blow: People don’t know Pete DJ Jones was just as big as, if not bigger, than Kool DJ Herc, and people generally don’t know that there were two different categories or two different markets, and early hip-hop, see, people don’t know that hip-hop was around seven years before the first record came out! And within those seven years, there was two different markets. There was the ghetto disco rapper and then there was the b-boys. I mean, well, the ghetto disco was the b-boys, but then there middle-class black disco. That’s where Pete came from, and a lot of the ghetto b-boys, the b-boys don’t acknowledge the disco rappers, because they wanna keep the whole history to themselves. In all actuality, we are all pieces of the puzzle! And you know, you gotta put all those pieces together in order for you to get the full picture, the full picture of hip-hop. A lot of people don’t know that. A lot of people don’t know about Pete or even Hollywood, Cheeba, Lovebug Starski, guys like that.

Marc Allan: Yeah, yeah.

Kurtis Blow: They don’t get the credit. And that’s exactly why I put this series together, because if you talk to any one of those guys alone, they’ll say, “I’m the man, I did it! I’m the one that was the most important!” Sugarhill would say, “If it wasn’t for us, the rest of you bubbas wouldn’t have a job!”

Marc Allan: Yeah, and generally-

Kurtis Blow: Talk to Kool Herc! He won’t give up props to the Sugarhill Gang or Pete DJ Jones. You talk to Run DMC, they’re talking about, “Before us, and before 1983, hip-hop didn’t matter!” Ooh, you know what I’m sayin’? Things like that, everybody thinks they’re the man, and they are the ones that put the most into this thing. And that’s not even true. It was a combination of all of us together, everybody’s efforts, together, pieces of a puzzle.

Marc Allan: Why do you think that rappers typically don’t have long careers?

Kurtis Blow: I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know. That’s a very, very, very good question. Maybe because our fans aren’t as loyal as rock ‘n’ roll fans are? Or our fans here in America aren’t as loyal as the other forms of music, like for instance, in Germany, I could tour Germany and sell out 2,000, 3,000-seaters anywhere in Germany, at any given time, just on my old stuff. That’s because the people are loyal! We need to get loyal, we need to, instead of saying, “Oh, he’s old, he’s washed-up,” you need to honor that man, because they have been through it and they’ve survived, and they’ve lasted, they’ve proven themselves! So I mean, people should think about that.

Marc Allan: If you toured the United States right now, what would happen?

Kurtis Blow: If I toured the United States right now?

Marc Allan: Yeah.

Kurtis Blow: I don’t know. Some places I might get 5, 6,000, 10,000. Some places, I might get 2 or 300.

Marc Allan: Phew!

Kurtis Blow: It’s very, very different. There are markets in different cities where I’m really, really hot, and people really, really haven’t forgotten, and then there are others who just don’t give a hoot! And that’s just the sadness of the business that we’re in. But I ain’t mad at nobody.

Marc Allan: No, no, I’m not suggesting that. I’m wondering, you were saying that loyalty is a problem, do you have any sense of why loyalty is such a problem?

Kurtis Blow: Yeah-

Marc Allan: I mean, like why will-

Kurtis Blow: I’d rather not say.

Marc Allan: Okay, all right! That’s fine, let me throw out one theory for you, and see if you buy this, okay? I think that the biggest problem that rap has is that it’s really done poorly live. I’ve seen very, I mean-

Kurtis Blow: Really! Hmm!

Marc Allan: I’ve seen very few good rap acts live. I mean, people who do such interesting things with their records can’t do it live! What do you think? I’m not asking you to address people, but that idea.

Kurtis Blow: Wow, I never really thought about that, but if you think about it, you very well may be true! I mean, all throughout history, if you look at the great groups that perform live, those are the ones that sell the most albums, and the people keep coming back to their shows. That is correct. That’s maybe one of the reasons why I’ve done 10 albums. One of the very few, and handful of us, who have more than 10 albums.

Marc Allan: Yeah, I mean, most of-

Kurtis Blow: And wow, I got a pretty good live show! Wow, that may be it!

Marc Allan: Yeah, for example, I just saw the Wu-Tang Clan the other night, and I think they do some real interesting stuff on their records, musically and creatively, and they’re good rappers live. There’s six of ’em with open mikes, and they’re steppin’ on each other, and the only tracks that are comin’ out are bass and drums, and they sound terrible! So it’s just an idea. Anyway, let me see, a few other things I wanted to ask you if I can. Sometimes I get this question from a lot of people and I’m sort of at a loss to answer it. Maybe you can explain it. White America really seems to have gravitated toward rap, and some acts where you would think that the acts aren’t really speaking to white suburban America. What is it about rap that brings people in?

Kurtis Blow: Well, number one it’s the beat, of course, the beat will move you, without a doubt. Number two, it’s basically that realistic, self-expression type rap, just rappin’ like they don’t care! And a lot of kids identify with that. They relate to a lot of the problems that these urban kids go through, even though it’s basically suburban America that are buying the bulk of the records, but suburban America, they wanna be like urban America!

Marc Allan: Yeah!

Kurtis Blow: Bottom line, ’cause urban America is cool, hip, you know, the have-nots. The haves always wanna be like the have-nots.

Marc Allan: Why?

Kurtis Blow: Because the have-nots are cool. They have the expression, the slang, the gear, they always are on the front lines of creating new fashion and new slang, and it’s just hip! ‘Cause when you get all those people together in one place, when it’s really crowded like that, that’s where most of the creativity comes out of. Just that closeness of that tension, you know?

Marc Allan: You mention a lot of firsts in the CDs, who was the first doing such-and-such a thing. I wanted to ask you about some firsts. When was the first time that you remember rap being co-opted for commercial purposes?

Kurtis Blow: Oh, I have the first national commercial, on Sprite. And that was ’84, I believe, 1984.

Marc Allan: You did it?

Kurtis Blow: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Oh, okay.

Kurtis Blow: It was the first national commercial, Sprite.

Marc Allan: And when they approached you about it, did you have any qualms about doin’ it?

Kurtis Blow: No, I was happy!

Marc Allan: No, okay, all right. When was the first time that you remember hearing somebody criticize rap for being too violent? Or misogynistic or any of the other things that they criticize it for?

Kurtis Blow: Somebody doin’ a diss rap?

Marc Allan: No, no, no, I just mean like right now, C. Delores Tucker and William Bennet are out there all the time criticizing rap, but I’m wondering, how long ago was it that people started criticizing rap?

Marc Allan: Kurtis Blow: Oh, the beginning.

Marc Allan: At the very beginning?

Kurtis Blow: Oh, yeah, ’79, ’80.

Marc Allan: Really?

Kurtis Blow: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Was it anybody national, or was it just… Like who was the big-

Kurtis Blow: Don Cornelius of “Soul Train,” first time I went on “Soul Train.” I was the first rapper on “Soul Train.” Now when I got there, I had “The Breaks” out. “The Breaks” was number one record in the country, R&B. And he introduced me, I did my song, everybody went crazy, and he came up to me to do a little interview when I was standing there. He says, “Yeah, well, I don’t know why everybody’s makin’ so much of a fuss about this thing called rap, but, uh, you know, it’s my job, and I gotta do my job, so, here it is.”

Marc Allan: He said that on TV?

Kurtis Blow: On TV.

Marc Allan: Oh my gosh!

Kurtis Blow: Yeah, and I was 19! He broke my heart. He really, really, you know, you don’t tell that to a 19-year-old kid! You’re supposed to motivate a 19-year-old kid!

Marc Allan: And even if you thought that, you’d think he woulda been more diplomatic about it and just not said anything.

Kurtis Blow: Or been professional!

Marc Allan: Yeah, because it turns out that, you know, he’s still promoting rap, how many years later?

Kurtis Blow: He was wrong.

Marc Allan: Yeah. Who was the first gangster rapper?

Kurtis Blow: I don’t know. I have no comment. I don’t even wanna get into that.

Marc Allan: Hmm, okay, let me see, just a couple other things, if I could. For another story I’ve been working on, I’ve been asking everybody I interview, if you became the overlord of pop music, what would be the first thing you would change?

Kurtis Blow: Wow! If I became the overlord of pop music, the first thing I would change is, everyone, trying to get them back to God. Trying to bring people to God would be my main thing.

Marc Allan: Hmm, okay. All right!

Kurtis Blow: All right?

Marc Allan: Yeah, and is there anything else that you wanna say about the rap “Collections,” or anything else?

Kurtis Blow: No, I just think that it’s a must-pick-up for anyone involved in hip-hop. It took me three years to do. And it should serve as the guidelines for many people who need the information.

Marc Allan: Yeah, I mean, I was really shocked when I first put it on, and you started off with James Brown, and I thought, yeah, this makes sense to me! I had no idea about the foundation of it, and I thought you did a really good job. These are three really worthwhile discs for people.

Kurtis Blow: All right, thank you so much.

Marc Allan: So anyway, thanks, Kurtis. Take care of yourself.

Kurtis Blow: Okay, you too!

Marc Allan: Bye-bye.