The Top 50 Hip-Hop Singles Of The 1980s
In August 1973, the Jamaican-born Clive “DJ Kool Herc” Campbell held his first block party in the Bronx, bringing the Jamaican sound system culture to America and inadvertently providing the first sparks that would ignite hip-hop. For most of the 1970s, hip-hop remained an underground phenomenon within New York City, as b-boys learned to loop drum breaks from their favorite records with two turntables, breakdance to the music, and rhyme over it. By the end of the decade, however, independent labels had begun to capture rap music in the studio, and hip-hop quickly began to make noise internationally as the new sound of Black America.
The 1980s were hip-hop’s first full decade as a documented musical genre on record, and from ’80 to ’89, rap grew from single to albums, from party songs to social commentary, from simple funk breaks to complex sample-delic walls of sound, and from a niche regional subculture to a multi-million dollar industry which turned MCs across the country into platinum pop stars. With hip-hop officially turning 50 years old this month, here’s a look back at the greatest beats and rhymes of the 1980s:
50. The Sugarhill Gang – “Apache” (1981)
Hip-hop largely developed outside of recording studios and Billboard charts through most of the 1970s, but the decade ended with the Sugarhill Gang’s release of “Rapper’s Delight” in September ’79, which propelled the genre into the Top 40 for the first time. The New Jersey trio of Big Bank Hank, Master Gee, and Wonder Mike never quite captured the public’s imagination on the same level again, but they released a few more hits in the first half of the ‘80s.
The most enduring of those tracks was built on the Incredible Bongo Band’s cover of Bert Weedon’s “Apache,” a breakbeat so popular with the original ‘70s b-boys that it’s been called ”hip-hop’s national anthem.”
49. Kurtis Blow – “The Breaks” (1980)
Harlem’s Kurtis Blow became the first rapper signed to a major label in 1979 when Mercury issued his holiday novelty “Christmas Rappin’,” followed the next year by his self-titled debut album
“The Breaks” was built on an original funk groove by a live band, with Blow riffing on every possible meaning of the word “breaks” (or “brakes”) for more than seven minutes in an early display of hip-hop’s potential for wordplay (and cheesy puns).
48. Run-DMC – “It’s Like That” (1983)
A key part of recorded hip-hop’s early years of relying heavily on session musicians for backing tracks, bassist Larry Smith played on early ‘80s classics including “The Breaks.
.” When the stark drum machine minimalism of Run-DMC’s debut single swept in a new sound which made songs like “The Breaks” sound unfashionable, Smith moved behind the boards alongside Russell Simmons, manager of Kurtis Blow and brother of Run-DMC’s Joseph “Run” Simmons. In fact, Blow mixed “It’s Like That,” which consisted primarily of lyrics Run had been paid to write for a Blow song.
47. Whodini – “Freaks Come Out at Night” (1984)
Brooklyn trio Whodini was Run-DMC’s primary competition in the mid-‘80s, but once again, the same players were behind the scenes with both groups, including the aforementioned Russell Simmons and Larry Smith.
The more electro-influenced and R&B-adjacent sound Smith crafted for Whodini was completely distinct from his work with Run-DMC, with Whodini’s Jalil Hutchins taking inspiration from funk songs like “Super Freak” by Rick James for the hook of the group’s signature song.