Kurtis Blow

Kurtis Blow, born Kurtis Walker, is a pioneering American hip-hop artist whose early recordings helped bring rap music to a wider audience. He is also known for mentoring Rev Run and for sharing firsthand accounts of hip-hop’s beginnings.

Kurtis Blow Built Hip-Hop’s Foundations Through Music, Mentorship, and Performance

Kurtis Blow argues that hip-hop was built through local craft and mentorship, long before it became an industry. In a Paid in Full conversation with Nas, Rev Run and Roxanne Shanté, he recalls how disco, DJing and block parties shaped the music in a New York where, as he put it, “we had nothing”; Run describes learning to perform at his side. Nas traces that influence into his own work, explaining why he later recorded Blow’s “If I Ruled the World” with Lauryn Hill.

a16zOct 31, 20268 min read