Friday FroBack: Kurtis Blow - ‘The Breaks’ (on Soul Train)
ShareFor your sake, I hope you didn’t miss VH1′s documentary “Soul Train: The Hippest Trip in America.” You got archival clips from its early beginnings as a local program in Chicago in 1970 and on through its move to Los Angeles, where its social impact reached far beyond hair styles and hot-minute singles. Then you got Don Cornelius, his baritone voice and the flyest wardrobe you’ve ever seen. You got Ike & Tina, you got Earth Wind and Fire and you got Public Enemy.
But for this FroBack, we got Kurtis Blow singing the Breaks in front of a sea of afros (love the aerial shots). “The Breaks” off his 1980 debut album was the first hip hop record to go Gold.
Ready for this list of other firsts:
- First rapper to sign to a major label
- First rapper to tour US & Europe (with The Commodores, 1980)
- First rapper to record a national commercial (Sprite)
- First rapper to use the drum machine, sample and sample loop
- First rap music video (“Basketball”)
- First rap producer (rap’s producer of the year in 1983 and 1985)
- First rapper featured in a soap opera (One Life to Live)
- First rap millionaire