Blondie "Rapture"

In the early days of rap in New York City, the faces of the genre were young, black men who often used other people's music (sampled) and laid spoken (unsung) verses on top of them.

Sampling was looked down upon, but most rappers did not have instruments to lay down new recordings.

Rap thrived in a small way as NYC artists who could afford to press their own records or signed to local labels that could get their music to the public had a leg up on everyone else.

However, when white artists started to pick up on rap, it began a rise that has made it one of the truly mainstream genres in American pop culture.

One of the pioneering white artists was Debbie Harry of Blondie, who fell in love with rap in NYC clubs.

"Rapture" -- through its music video on MTV -- put a different face on rap, making it more acceptable to a white audience that saw it as music from "the other."

However, Blondie was considered a holdover from the maligned disco era, so when Aerosmith, a well-established rock 'n roll band that was close to being dropped from its record label after a couple underperforming albums, took a chance to remake one of its own songs with rap group Run D.M.C., it legitimized rap as a viable genre in the eyes of even more people, opening the door for its ascent.