Hurby “Luvbug” Azor (Haiti)
As the brains behind ‘80s favorites Salt N Pepa and Kid N Play, Hurby “Luvbug” Azor was the architect of a musical era synonymous with lighthearted lyrics and synchronized dance steps. Hip-hop’s first out-front, “celebrity” producer, he was often seen in his group’s videos, hamming it up and projecting the producer-as-player image that Sean “Puffy” Combs, among others, would later take cues from. (Bad Boy’s in-house production crew The Hitmen, with Puffy as its face and marquee name, was also modeled after Azor’s own support unit, The Invincibles.)
Azor, whose often incorporated the sounds of D.C. Gogo into songs like “Rolling with Kid N Play” and Salt N Pepa’s “Shake Your Thing,” dropped off the hip-hop map in the mid ‘90s; his last notable international production was actually “Anything For You” by Snow. He currently resides in his native Haiti, where he’s put his artist-grooming skills back to work developing Shassy, a singer/rapper whose presentation (visually, at least) has been compared locally to Nicki Minaj.