“I didn't even feel like climbing up the hill anymore, because every time I climbed up somebody was gonna push me back down it.” »read more
Tuesday, February 09, 2010 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G |
| H | I | J | K | L | M | N |
| O | P | Q | R | S | T | U |
| V | W | X | Y | Z | # |
Browse Categories Random Songfact Random Category Add to Songfacts Take the Quiz SongFAQ Get the Newsletter E-Mail Us Message Boards Songwriter Interviews Song Writing Songfactor's Choice Lyrical Pursuit Song Fallacies
Get the Ringtone
Get Song @ Amazon
Get the Sheet Music
Songfacts: You can leave comments about the song at the bottom of the page.
This was the first rap song to sell over 500,000 copies and earn a certified gold record. The album was also the first rap record released on a major label. Kurtis signed with Mercury Records early in 1980.
Kurtis: "The concept was created as a tribute to all the breakers in and around the South Bronx and Harlem back in the early days of Hip-Hop. I wanted to do a tribute song with many breaks so that the breakers could get down and do their thing. When we danced during the breaks of a song, that was our time to go off - to do our best moves."
Kurtis took the idea for this song to his producers, J.B. Moore and Robert Ford. J.B. came up with the concept of other implied meanings for "breaks," like brakes on a bus or a car, good breaks or bad breaks in life. Says Kurtis: "He referred back to this old song, a philosophy song, I think it came out in 1920 or something, where a guy was talking, saying - 'Oh, your girlfriend left you, and you lost your job and your car got towed away, well don't worry, tomorrow the sun will shine and everything will be alright' - good breaks and bad breaks can happen in life, but don't worry because there's always another tomorrow. We wanted to repeat that concept and have the many meanings within one song. We put it together and had the greatest musicians play - John Tropea on guitar, Jimmy Bralower on drums, Larry Smith, who went on to produce Run-DMC and Whoodini played the bass, Denzil Miller on keyboard."
This ran 7:43 and was released as a 12-inch single, which was the same size as a record but contained just one song on each side, allowing for much longer songs than a typical 45 RPM single would hold. It became the second certified gold 12-inch in all of music. The first was Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand's 'No More Tears (Enough Is Enough),' which came out in 1979.
Kurtis: "There was no real marketing for the song, no plan. We just wanted to make a kick-ass record and that's exactly what we did. The clubs ate it up. You couldn't find a club in America during the summer of 1980 that would not play this song around 12, 1 o'clock in the morning." (thanks to Kurtis for speaking to us about this song)
The short-lived European group Los Umbrellos recorded a Flamenco version of this song called "Flamenco Funk" in 1997. Los Umbrellos had a minor hit that year with "No Tengo Dinero."
Comments:
The music is great on this song, awesome piano solo, bass line, and the rhytym section with the rumba is really cool.
- Joey, Boston, MA