come on now, brakes on the bus, brakes on the car, the brakes was kurtis blow's biggest hit, selling 680,000 copies last year and hitting the top of the rhythm and blues sales charts. >> as a young kid, running around with a local dj crew, i watched the transition from all the disco music that we used to play at all the block parties to slowly but surely hip hop taking over. >> the music underneath. >> rapping is called scratching, and it's a process of using two turntables and a mixer, making new sounds out of already existing albums. >> the thing that gave life to music in the 80s for me was hip hop, because it took the sounds of the 60s and 70s and brought it to the forefront. >> a child is born with no state of mind, blind to the ways of mankind. god is smiling on you, but he's frowning too, because only god knows what you go through. >> the message was the first hip hop song that wasn't just a party song, it was talking about what was going on. it was talking about urban decay. it was talking about drugs, crime, prison, all of these things that were hitting these communities rea