“The Breaks” by Kurtis Blow

Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks" came out on Mercury in June 1980, lifted from his self-titled debut album, and it made history of the most practical kind: it was the first rap song ever certified gold, and only the second 12-inch single of any sort to get there.

The whole thing is one long, elastic pun. Over six and a half minutes Blow works the word "break" and its soundalikes 84 times, juggling three different meanings, while the track keeps dropping into breakdowns, six of them, seven if you count the outro. And the funk underneath is original, not lifted from somebody else's record. It stalled at number 87 on the Hot 100 but went to number four on the R&B chart and nine on the dance chart, and in 2008 VH1 ranked it 10th among the 100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.