Music Documentaries

The First 10 Gold Rap Singles in History

Hip-Hop

Over 30 years and counting. Rap music is still here and keeps getting more and more present in mainstream music. Like any other genre of music I listen to, there is a love / hate relationship here for sure. I absolutely hate what 90% of what hip-hop has become. Over the past few years it has united with cheesy euro dance to form some sort of horrific new style of music… but like anything else (house, jazz, dubstep, soul), there is still 10% of absolutely genius stuff out there.

Just for fun I thought I’d put together a list of the 10 first ever rap singles to attain gold status, 1,000,000 sales back then but since ’89 has been reduced to 500,000. Here are the top ten, starting with Kurtis Blow back in 1980. Also interesting to see that there were 4 gold singles from ’80 to ’88 and then 5 in ’89 alone.

Kurtis Blow “The Breaks” (Mercury) – 1980

Blondie “Rapture” (Chrysalis) – 1981

Afrika Bambaataa “Planet Rock” – 1982

Doug E Fresh – “The Show” (Reality)

Dj Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince “Parents Just Don’t Understand” – 1989

De La Soul – Me Myself and I (Tommy Boy) – 1989

LL Cool J – I’m that type of guy (Def Jam) – 1989

Stop the Violence Movement – Self-Destruction (Jive) – 1989

2 Live Crew – Me So Horny (Luke Skywalker) – 1989

Mellow Man Ace “Mentirosa” (Capitol) – 1990

Lexis

Lexis

Montreal-based DJ and the founder MusicIsMySanctuary.com (2007) and 24 Hours of Vinyl (2011).