📺 MTV Rewind
Home › Artists › The Gap Band

The Gap Band - Early In The Morning

1982 · Early 1980s Funk/R&B Golden Age (1982) · music video
The Gap Band - Early In The Morning music video
1982Early 1980s Funk/R&B Golden Age (1982)Early 1980s Black Funk and R&B — post-disco era defined by synth-driven grooves, big bass, and charismatic frontman performance aesthetics

What this video is

Released in 1982, 'Early in the Morning' arrived at a pivotal cultural inflection point: MTV had launched in August 1981, and Black funk and R&B acts were navigating a medium that initially programmed them inconsistently. The Gap Band — formed by the Wilson brothers from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and named after the Greenwood, Archer, and Pine streets of the historic Black Wall Street district destroyed in the 1921 Tulsa…

Why it matters

As the Gap Band's biggest Billboard Hot 100 crossover hit and their second #1 R&B single, 'Early in the Morning' is a defining artifact of early-1980s funk-soul synthesis. Its heavy synth bass, call-and-response vocal structure, and tight rhythmic groove directly influenced the new jack swing…

Read the full researched annotation on RAD →
More: All The Gap Band videos · Browse channels · Turn on the TV →