Blowfly Rapp

[Giuliana]

Reidwas born in Cochran, Georgia, in 1939 and moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, in his adolescence (c. 1949).[4][5] His stage name was given to him by his grandmother who he would visit in Georgia occasionally. During this time, Reid would make explicit parodies of the country music that was popular on the airwaves in Cochran then, prompting his grandmother to brand him a "blowfly".[5]

"In hillbilly, you'll find some of the best lyrics and morals. I used to listen to Homer and Jethro, and they would rap most of the time, only they didn't call it rap then. They used to call it soul talkin'. As a form of revenge, I would take songs like "The Twist," and I would change it from (sings) "Come on baby, let's do the twist" to "Come on baby, and suck my d-!" My grandma would say that's terrible, you're a poor excuse for a human being. Child, you're nastier than a blowfly."[5]

During the 1960s and 1970s he wrote for and produced artists including Betty Wright, Sam & Dave, Gwen McCrae, Jimmy "Bo" Horne, Bobby Byrd, and KC & the Sunshine Band. During this period he was also a recording artist, cutting many of his own songs, including "Nobody But You Babe" and his first XXX record, "Oddballs" which was reworked into "Rapp Dirty" several years later.[5][6]

Reid wrote sexually explicit versions of hit songs for fun but only performed them for his friends at parties or in the studio. In 1971, he along with a band of studio musicians, recorded a whole album of these songs under the name Blowfly. The album, The Weird World of Blowfly, features Reid dressed as a low-rent supervillain on its cover. Blowfly continued to perform in bizarre costumes as his Blowfly character and record sexually explicit albums throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Reid claimed to be one of the first artists to perform in a mask, and transitioned from a "tuxedo like Dracula" or a "buttless" Clint Eastwood inspired outfit, to the spandex suits that he became known for in response to public demand.[5] The albums were widely popular as "party records". He recorded the explicit version of his song "Rapp Dirty" (a.k.a. "Blowfly's Rapp") in 1980. Blowfly has been described as the root of Gangsta rap[7]

Blowfly's profane style earned Reid legal trouble. He was sued by songwriter Stanley Adams, who was ASCAP president at the time, for spoofing "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes" as "What a Difference a Lay Makes". Reid's own compositions have been sampled by dozens of hip hop, R&B, and electronic artists (such as Beyonce, Wu Tang Clan, DJ Quik, DMX, Method Man & Redman, Main Source, DJ Shadow, Eazy-E, RJD2, Jurassic 5, Big Daddy Kane, Mary J. Blige, Brand Nubian, and the Avalanches) but Reid received almost no money from sampling due to signing away most of his royalties.

Blowfly's Zodiac Blowfly LP (also released on CD in 1996 on Weird World Records) includes the songs "If Eating You Is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Right", "The First Time Ever You Sucked My Dick", and "Ain't No Head Like My Woman's Head", as well as a version of "Clean Up Woman", which he co-wrote. Another album of this period is The Weird World of Blowfly.

In 2003, Blowfly sold the rights to his entire catalog after years of debt. After 17 years of sporadic touring and occasional re-recording of his classic raps, Blowfly signed with Jello Biafra's independent record label Alternative Tentacles in 2005. Fahrenheit 69, the first album under the new contract, featured appearances from Slug of Atmosphere, King Coleman, Gravy Train, and Afroman.

Today, we stop, look, and listen to the pioneers who established the template for what we know today as hip-hop. Any number of well-meaning hip-hop histories will tend to mention, in this exact order, Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight," Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel's "The Message," and RUN-D.M.C.'s "Sucker MC's." All of them are infinitely important, no question, but here are five pieces of history that helped set the table for hip-hop to be such a multifaceted force.

In 1973, that same year a Bronx house party is first credited with birthing hip-hop, Jalal Mansur Nuriddin of the Last Poets released a story told in rhyme over funk and jazz under the name Lightnin' Rod called Hustlers Convention. His sharp storytelling took the cool elements of proto-rap like Moore and Blowfly, but gave it a thoughtful, poignant angle. Without shock factor or overt comedy, it sits at the center of a Venn diagram comparing Dolemite and Gil Scott-Heron.

While mainstream outlets were still hesitant to outright play rap music, they seemingly had far fewer qualms about taking advertising money to play commercials with rappers in them. Not including Debbie Harry of Blondie's vocals in "Rapture," Fat Boys' Prince Markie Dee in a commercial for Swatch watches was the first emcee seen rapping on MTV. Around the same time, Sprite began their decades-long relationship with hip-hop by having Kurtis Blow star in the first national hip-hop advertisement.

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