Kurtis Blow

The cover of Kurtis Blow's debut is a straightforward portrait of the rapper with his name as the title. That plainness was the point. This was one of the first full-length rap albums released by a major label, and Mercury Records sold it the way it sold any new singer: the face, the name and nothing to get in the way. The record was produced by J. B. Moore and Robert Ford Jr., with management credited to Rush Productions, the company run by a young Russell Simmons.

Blow later explained why he had been picked as the first rapper to get a major deal. Asked why the industry chose him over his peers, he said it was "because I was a good looking guy." The sleeve makes that case without words. Hip-hop in 1980 was still mostly a live culture of parks, clubs and mixtapes, and very few people outside New York knew what a rapper looked like. A clean studio portrait introduced one to the rest of the country as a star in the mould of the soul and disco acts in the same record racks.

The success of "The Breaks", a gold single, had convinced Mercury that Blow was more than a novelty, and the album followed. Its cover set a template that rap debuts would use for years: the artist alone, named in large type, presented as a solo celebrity. The album was released on 29 September 1980.