"The Breaks" is a song by American rapper

Kurtis Blow Kurtis Walker (born August 9, 1959), known professionally by his stage name Kurtis Blow, is an American rapping , rapper, songwriter, and record producer. Walker is the first commercially successful rapper and the first to sign with a major rec ...

from his self-titled debut album. It was released as a single in June 1980 and peaked at No. 87 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. It was the first certified gold

rap song Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

, and the second certified gold

12-inch single The twelve-inch single (often written as 12-inch or 12) is a type of vinyl ( polyvinyl chloride or PVC) gramophone record that has wider groove spacing and shorter playing time with a "single" or a few related sound tracks on each surface, compa ...

. In 2008, the song ranked #10 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs.

Lyrics and structure

"The Breaks" repeats the word "break" (or any of its

homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, a ...

s) 84 times over six and a half minutes. It features six breakdowns (seven including the outro) while there are three definitions for "break," "to break" or "brakes" used in the lyrics. Unlike most hip-hop songs which sample prerecorded funk, the funk beat in this song is original (contrary to suggestions that it sampled "

Long Train Runnin' "Long Train Runnin" (or "Long Train Running") is a song recorded by American rock band the Doobie Brothers and written by band member Tom Johnston. It was included on the band's third album, '' The Captain and Me'' (1973), and was released as ...

" by

the Doobie Brothers The Doobie Brothers are an American rock band formed in San Jose, California in 1970. Known for their flexibility in performing across numerous genres and their vocal harmonies, the band has been active for over five decades, with their greate ...

Chart performance

The single hit No. 87 on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot 100, No. 4 on the U.S. ''Billboard''

R&B chart The Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart ranks the most popular R&B and hip hop songs in the United States and is published weekly by '' Billboard''. Rankings are based on a measure of radio airplay, sales data, and streaming activity. The chart had 100 ...

, and No. 9 on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Dance chart.

Certifications

It sold over 500,000 copies, becoming the first

to earn a

gold certification Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...

from the

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

and the second

to earn a gold certification, following "

No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" is a song recorded by American singers Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer, released in October 1979. It was written by Paul Jabara and Bruce Roberts (singer), Bruce Roberts, and produced by Giorgio Moroder and G ...

" by

Barbra Streisand Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand ( ; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress, songwriter, producer, and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success across multiple fields of entertainment, being the ...

and

Donna Summer Donna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948May 17, 2012), known professionally as Donna Summer, was an American singer and songwriter. She gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s and became known as the "Queen of Disco", while her music ...

Media

The song has featured in several video games: the 2002 game '' Grand Theft Auto: Vice City'' on the fictional in-game radio station "Wildstyle", the 2005 game '' True Crime: New York City'', the 2006 game '' Scarface: The World Is Yours'' and the 2011

Kinect Kinect is a discontinued line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB color model, RGB cameras, and Thermographic camera, infrared projectors and detectors that map dep ...

game ''

Dance Central 2 ''Dance Central 2'' is a 2011 rhythm game developed by Harmonix and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox 360 Kinect. It is the sequel to ''Dance Central (2010 video game), Dance Central'' (2010) and the second installment in the ''Dance Ce ...

''.

Samples

It has been

sampled Sample or samples may refer to: * Sample (graphics), an intersection of a color channel and a pixel * Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of something * Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal * Sample ...

by others, including the background beat being used in

Organized Rhyme Organized Rhyme was a Canadian hip hop group based in Ottawa, Ontario. The group became one of the first Canadian rap acts to sign a record deal with a major label (A&M Records) and the video for their debut single "Check the O.R." won the MuchM ...

's song "Check the O.R." and the 2005

reggaeton Reggaeton (, ) is a modern style of popular music, popular and electronic music that originated in Panamanian reggaetón, Panama during the late 1980s, and which rose to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s through a plethora of Puert ...

single, " Chacarron Macarron" by

El Chombo Rodney Sebastian Clark Donalds (born November 27, 1969), better known by his stage name El Chombo,In Panama, ''Chombo'' refers to a black person but is generally a derogatory term. is a Panamanian reggaeton artist and producer. He is best known f ...

. Female rap group Nadanuf remade the song alongside Kurtis Blow on their 1997 album ''Worldwide''. Blow re-recorded the song on the album ''Tricka Technology'' by

A Skillz A.Skillz (born Adam Mills) is an English electronic musician. He has worked across the UK at FabricLive, Spectrum, Chew The Fat, Supercharged, The Boutique and Sugarbeat as well as gigs around the world at major events, festivals and music indus ...

and

Krafty Kuts Krafty Kuts (real name Martin Reeves) is an English producer and DJ of electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or g ...

. H.O.T's

Tony Ahn Tony An (; born June 7, 1978) is a South Korean singer-songwriter, best known as a member of boy band H.O.T. After H.O.T. disbanded in 2001, its ex-members Tony An, Jang Woo-hyuk and Lee Jae-won formed the dance music trio jtL. Eventually, JT ...

rapped portions of "The Breaks" as an uncredited vocal for the intro of S.E.S.'s "I'm Your Girl".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Breaks, The 1980 songs 1980 singles Kurtis Blow songs Funk-rap songs Mercury Records singles Songs written by Russell Simmons