The Gap Band — Early In The Morning

JUL 01 1982 · 12:00

The Gap Band — Early In The Morning (1982) Era: Early 1980s Funk/R&B Golden Age (1982) - Peak commercial era for Black funk and soul acts on newly independent labels; MTV's launch year creating unprecedented synergy between R&B performance videos and cable television exposure. This is a Tier 1 artifact of early-1980s Black American funk culture, representing the commercial and artistic peak of one of the most influential R&B groups of the era. As the music video for the Gap Band's highest-charting Hot 100 single and the debut single from Total Experience Records' first album, it sits at the intersection of music industry history, Black cultural entrepreneurship, and the early evolution of the music video format. Its warm tungsten palette and moderate-pace editing provide a clean visual document of pre-HD performance video conventions that serves as an essential reference point for any archive of 1980s funk and soul visual culture. Context: 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 Race Massacre — represented the commercial apex of post-disco Black funk. Gap Band IV was the debut release on Total Experience Records, producer Lonnie Simmons' newly independent label, signaling a broader movement of Black artists seeking greater autonomy over their music and masters. The song cemented the band as one of the definitive funk acts of the early 1980s alongside Parliament-Funkadelic, Zapp & Roger, and Prince. Director notes: The video was produced in 1982 to accompany the lead single from Gap Band IV, the band's sixth studio album released on Total Experience Records — the first album on producer Lonnie Simmons' newly launched independent label. The single peaked at #1 on the Billboard R&B chart for three weeks and reached #24 on the Hot 100 and #13 on the dance chart, making it the Gap Band's biggest crossover hit at the time. The video's warm, high-contrast, stage-performance aesthetic is consistent with the limited-budget promotional clip production norms of 1982, predating widespread adoption of elaborate narrative or concept video formats for R&B acts.