He went on to produce albums and write songs for acts including Kurtis Blow, Rodney Dangerfield, and Full Force, and has been recognized as having played "a crucial role in early commercial hip-hop".

[2] His family later moved to St. Albans, Queens, and he became friends with Larry Smith while attending Andrew Jackson High School there.

[3] He met with DJ Kool Herc and learned that DJs were buying up these records in order to play short drum breaks in the songs on repeat at parties.

[6] The duo gave the song to rapper Kurtis Blow, who Ford met while working on his "Jive Talking N.Y. DJs..." article.

[2][1] The song was released by Mercury Records in December 1979 to wide success, causing Blow to sign a deal with the label.

[2] Ford, Moore, Smith, and Russell Simmons co-produced Blow's followup song, "The Breaks", which became the first hip-hop single to be certified gold by the RIAA.