O.G. DEPT. FEET JUST GO

In a rehearsal studio in the Echo Park neighborhood in Los Angeles, Kurtis Blow was limbering up and getting loose. Earlier this year, his left arm swelled up abruptly, requiring four surgeries to resolve what was eventually diagnosed as deep-vein thrombosis. Blow usually holds the mike in his right hand when he raps, but he had to get his left arm going, he said, “because it’s my ‘Throw your hands in the air’ arm.”

- David Kamp

Lithe at age sixty-six, Blow was dressed in leather cargo pants, a track jacket, and a black baseball cap with the words “I AM HIP HOP” above its brim. He was whipping himself into shape for a “Legends of Hip-Hop” concert to be held just after Thanksgiving at the Peacock Theatre, in downtown L.A. He will be on a stage that will also feature such foundational rappers as Big Daddy Kane, Doug E. Fresh, and two members of the Furious Five, Melle Mel and Scorpio.

Blow’s youngest son, Michael, the studio’s owner, manned the d.j. deck, wearing a hoodie from Stanford, his alma mater. The rapper's eldest, Kurtis, Jr., nodded his do-ragged head to the beat and offered counsel alongside his mother, Kurtis, Sr.,’s wife of forty-two years, Shirley. (The Walkers, to use the family’s civilian surname, also have a third son, Mark.)