Last month Funk legend Clarence Reid aka pre-Oldschool rapper Blowfly died, today would have been his 77th birthday.

He gave us one more album called 77 Rusty Trombones, which you can preview here.

77 Rusty Trombones on iTunes

While he’s one of the most sampled artists in Hip Hop, from the earliest DJs and MCs such as KRS-1 and Afrika Bambaata to DMX and Beyoncé he’s getting most love from underground and hardcore rappers.

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Some Juggalos might know him from his on stage appearance at the GOTJ 2013.

Watch the video of Blowfly’s performance of Porno Freak at the GOTJ 2013

Juggalo favorites Scarface, Willie D and Bushwick Bill of The Geto Boys were among the ones acknowledging Blowfly’s influence on their work the most.

He was good friends with Big Money Hustlas star Rudy Ray Moore aka Dolemite who he toured with and who demonstrated some Getto Judo in Blowfly’s video Fonky Party with Isaac Hayes (the voice of Chef from South Park).

Their comedy was so explicit, it had to be sold under the counter, the vinyl records in other LP’s jackets and DJs lost their jobs for playing them, long before 2 Live Crew and NWA were arrested on stage for their profane raps.

Daniel Jordan, who did a track called The Human Tornado with Esham and Dolemite, also did a live gig with Blowfly and Esham.

And it was Daniel Jordan’s I Live For The Funk that Blowfly and Dolemite first appeared on a track together. You can see Blowlfy record his verse for it in the Documentary A Weird World Of Blowlfy that also features ICE-T and Chuck D of Public Enemy.

Many now famous rappers like Ice Cube started by making parody versions of famous songs. Not only did Blowfly do it first, he also wrote some of the originals he parodied. For example Betty Wright’s Clean Up Woman (Original) and Blowfly’s parody version (plus Hole Man) inspired Willie D’s Clean Up Man. The beat was sampled on Afrika Bambaataa’s Zulu War Chant.

Blowfly rapped and sung about chicks whooping out dicks before Tone Lōc’s Funky Cold Medina, beating up KKK rednecks before Paris and pornstars, pimps and hookers before Too Short. And of course he brought the gimmicks and disguises to rap long before ICP, MF Doom and Kool Keith.

He always insisted the first print of Rap Dirty was released in 1965, long before Kurtis Blow and The Sugar Hill Gang and he toured with James Brown as well as the Furious Five. Unlike other early influencers on rap (Gil Scott-Heron, Pigmeat Markham, The Watts Prohpehts) he rapped on beat and very explicitly, basically what almost every rapper does today.

You can follow the official accounts his team keeps alive on Twitter (@BlowflyOfficial) and Facebook (Blowfly’s band page) and check out his official site BlowflyOfficial.com

PS:

Some more photos and links will be added to this post later including Tech N9ne, DJ Quik and the Wu Tang Clan.