Blondie’s “Rapture” became the first music video featuring rap to air on MTV.
Released in 1981, “Rapture” combined new wave, disco, funk, and a spoken rap passage performed by Debbie Harry. The song’s video showed Harry moving through a stylized urban and fantastical setting, with appearances by artists associated with New York’s emerging hip-hop culture.
The rap section mentions Fab Five Freddy and Grandmaster Flash, linking the song to the downtown scene that influenced Blondie. Fab Five Freddy appears in the video, helping connect the clip visually to hip-hop’s early public profile.
The distinction is sometimes stated too broadly as “the first rap video.” The more precise claim is that “Rapture” was the first video featuring rap to be broadcast on MTV. MTV launched in August 1981, so the timing placed the clip at the beginning of the channel’s music-video era.