#2 - Fat Boys - Fat Boys
If you lived in ANY hood on the East Coast in 1984, one of the things you heard on EVERY block all Summer was this Kurtis Blow produced album! Going to the store – boom – “Can You Feel It”, coming home from school – boom – “Fat Boys”, on the way to church – boom – “Jailhouse Rap”. Matter of fact, every time somebody got arrested, somebody would be like, “in jaaaail without the baaaail” 
Though Run DMC are widely accepted as the most successful and visible Hip-Hop act of that period, having landed rap’s FIRST major endorsement deal as well as many other “firsts”, the Fat Boys contribution to that ethos
can NOT be disputed. From Swatch watch commercials to movies, they demonstrated that this “new” genre was, indeed, worth investing in on a MAJOR scale.
To this point, I remember, a few years after that (which we’ll talk more about later on 
), I attended my FIRST Hip-Hop concert – “Fresh Fest 4” at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now called the OnCenter War Memorial), and it was the Fat Boys who were headlining. Though there were other amazing acts like Salt n’ Pepa on the bill, EVERYBODY was caught up in seeing the Fat Boys!
Big respect to @legendaryfatboykoolrockski, and a moment of silence for Prince Markie Dee and Buff The Human Beat Box (Mark Morales and Darren Robinson, respectively), who have since passed on. 