Blowfly hatched from Soul songwriter/producer Clarence Reid’s depraved imagination as his alter ego who loves to make parodies about, well, getting off.
As Blowfly, he rapped nasty ditties decades before Too Short and 2 Live Crew. In the ’70s and ’80s, Reid released a slew of Adults Only party records as Blowfly on his own Weird World record label, all the while writing and producing for R&B artists like Betty Wright, Joe Tex, Wilson Pickett, KC & the Sunshine Band — and himself.
At the time, fans of Reid (and even his family) didn’t know about his career as Blowfly. His appeal remained underground. Like Rudy Ray Moore, who also built his following imitating the street culture of signifying, Blowfly’s poetic toasts were tall tales about size and strength. On “Rapp Dirty,” he spits an outrageous storyline of him as a sexual superhero whipping the Ku Klux Klan with his tool. A 45 spelled “Rap Dirty” from 1965, with him rhyming to a beat like Southern radio disc jockeys, is considered by many collectors to be the first Rap record.
Even bawdier at 73, Blowfly still makes music, and in 2011, he was featured in a documentary about his career, The Weird World of Blowfly. In it, the caped crusader’s very elderly mother remembers that he said his first cussword when he was 9 months old and told her his okra tasted “ass-ty.”
Blowfly is currently touring the Midwest and Canada on his “Porno Freak” tour.
BLOWFLY performs Wednesday, Sept. 12 in Newport at York Street Cafe with Miney Mo and Lazy Ass Destroyer.
