So What about Christmas Rappin’? Where does it fit into all of this?Pretty big deal right?! In 1979, aged twenty, Kurtis Blow became the first rapper to be signed by a major label, Mercury, which released “Christmas Rappin'”. It sold over 500,000 copies. Kurtis Blow had done the actual Christmas rappin’, but Simmons had brokered the deal.
It was the first rap song ever released by a major label, only the third released by any kind of label at all. That alone made it a novelty; that it was also about Christmas made it novelty cubed. Thirty-five years later, that’s the status it retains. Christmas raps are still a novelty, and this, of course, is still the first. But what it opened the way for was something so much larger and more substantial.
~But what about Eddie Cheeba!