of Run-D.M.C.'s first singles, Smith was engaged to produce a new album by Whodini, a Brooklyn hip hop trio that had been recording for then-London-based Jive Records since 1982. Just as "It's Like That" b/w "Sucker MCs" anchored Run-D.M.C., so Smith's production of the single "Friends" b/w "Five Minutes of Funk" would anchor Whodini's Escape. Ultimately, it reached number four on Billboard's Hot R&B Singles chart. In a 2009 interview with Jesse Serwer, Whodini's Jalil Hutchins recalled being introduced to Smith at Disco Fever in the Bronx: "Me and Larry became friends, and when we was going to record, we said, 'Lar, what you got?' He laid out his ideas real fast, and the first was 'Five Minutes of Funk.' When we caught that beat, we were like, 'Messing with you is gonna be fun.' We made that record in, like, a half hour." Escape's other notable single was "Freaks Come out at Night," about which the critic Greg Tate wrote: "[The track's] sybaritic verses would be just so much more overbaked hip hop toasting without Smith's sizzling contrapuntal eruptions arcing and looping in and out of the vocals. Smith and Whodini have laid the groundwork for a genus of hip hop as capable of personal revelation as the blues of Robert Johnson and as worldly wise as the melodic muse of Wayne Shorter." Certified platinum in 1987, Escape was named one of the 100 Best Rap Albums in The Source in 1998. The critic Vince Aletti, writing for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine in April 1986, summed up the impact of Smith's work for Whodini: "A funky but melodic mix that gives the material the appeal of songs rather than bare-boned rap attacks, these songs have gone on to become hits that helped open ears and airwaves to [hip hop]." Personal life Smith married his wife Michelle on his birthday, 11 June 1986. They met in England whilst he was producing Whodini's second album. They married in New York. In November 2007 Smith suffered a stroke. It left him unable to speak. He died on December 19, 2014. References African-American musicians Hip hop record producers 1952 births 2014 deaths People from St. Albans, Queens Andrew Jackson High School (Queens) alumni 20th-century African-American people 21st-century African-American people