Rudy Ray Moore

By his own account, he was working at the world famous Dolphin's of Hollywood record store in Los Angeles, California in 1970 when he began hearing obscene stories of "Dolemite" recounted by a local man named Rico. Moore recorded a number of street poets, including Big Brown who, before he moved to Los Angeles, had been an influence on Bob Dylan, among other artists, while living in Greenwich Village. (Dylan said Brown's poetry was the best poetry he had ever heard.)[10] In 1973, Moore produced Brown's album, The First Man of Poetry, Big Brown: Between Heaven and Hell.

According to Moore, there was a wino named Rico, and Moore heard him on the street corner doing all these raps and rhymes: 'Rico, you do "Dolemite", I'm gonna give you some money for soup. He did "Dolemite" in the middle of the floor in the store I was working and the people just rolled. So I thought then, he's not a professional; I'm a professional comedian. What if I did "Dolemite"? Sure enough, I invited him to my house, give him a little reefer and some wine. He put "Dolemite" on tape, I recorded it, the rest is history.'.[11]

Moore began recording the stories, and assumed the role of "Dolemite" in his club act and on recordings.[12] In 1970–71 he recorded three albums of material, Eat Out More Often, This Pussy Belongs To Me, and The Dirty Dozens, where "with jazz and R&B musicians playing in the background, [Moore] would recite raunchy, sexually explicit rhymes that often had to do with pimps, prostitutes, players, and hustlers."[13]

Moore was influenced by more mainstream comedians such as Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor, as well as by traditions such as the Dozens. The recordings were usually made in Moore's own house, with friends in attendance to give a party atmosphere. The album covers and contents were often too racy to be put on display in record stores,[12] but the records became popular through word of mouth and were highly successful in Black American communities,[1] where his "warped wit and anti-establishment outlook" were embraced.[4]

Moore spent most of his earnings from the records to finance the movie Dolemite, which appeared in 1975 and has been described as "one of the great blaxploitation movies" of the 1970s.[3][4] The character was "the ultimate ghetto hero: a bad dude, profane, skilled at kung-fu, dressed to kill and hell-bent on protecting the community from evil menaces. He was a pimp with a kung-fu-fighting clique of prostitutes and he was known for his sexual prowess."[12]

The film was successful and was followed by The Human Tornado, The Monkey Hustle, and Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil's Son-in-Law. Moore continued to release albums that appealed to his enduring fanbase through the 1970s and 1980s, but little of his work reached the mainstream white audience. His "rapid-fire rhyming salaciousness exceeded the wildest excesses" of Foxx and Pryor,[1] and his highly explicit style kept him off television and major films.[3][12] At the same time, Moore often spoke in his church and regularly took his mother to the National Baptist Convention. He said that: "I wasn't saying dirty words just to say them... It was a form of art, sketches in which I developed ghetto characters who cursed. I don't want to be referred to as a dirty old man, rather a ghetto expressionist."[12]

He came to be regarded as a major influence by many later rap stars. Snoop Dogg said: "Without Rudy Ray Moore, there would be no Snoop Dogg, and that's for real."[1] Moore appeared on Big Daddy Kane's 1990 album Taste of Chocolate and 2 Live Crew's 1994 album Back at Your Ass for the Nine-4. On an episode of Martin titled "The Players Came Home," he appeared as himself in the Dolemite character. He also reprised his Dolemite character in an appearance on Snoop Dogg's 1999 album No Limit Top Dogg and Busta Rhymes' When Disaster Strikes... and Genesis. Snoop Dogg would later have a cameo in "Dolemite Is My Name".[14]

In 2000, Moore starred in Big Money Hustlas, a movie created by and starring the hip hop group Insane Clown Posse, in which he played Dolemite for the first time in over 20 years. In 2006, Moore voice-acted in the show Sons of Butcher, as Rudy in season 2. In 2008, he reprised the character Petey Wheatstraw on the song "I Live for the Funk", which featured Blowfly and Daniel Jordan. It marked the first time Blowfly and Moore collaborated on the same record together, as well as the 30-year anniversary of the movie Petey Wheatstraw; it was also the final recording Moore made before his death.[15]

On October 19, 2008, Moore died in Akron, Ohio, of complications from diabetes. He was never married. His mother, two brothers and a sister, a daughter, and grandchildren survived him.[12]