hahaha, come on Sucio you gotta brush up on your hip hop facts bro...We both fuggs with this hip hop ish but...as far as VH1 goes, VH1 only played old ish (no rap), Ted Turner owned VH-1(though he called it something else) and sold it to MTV. If you wanted to watch a rap video, you had to go to Yo! MTV Raps and by the time the video got there, it had already been on the streets for months. Then MTV started doing "World Premiere" videos... remember that?
Even still, you couldn't base the popularity of hip hop on TV shows back in the 80's unless youre referring to mainstream ish. By the time TV shows got their hands on hip hop, hip hop had started using samples which was back in the mid to late 80's. By then #1's like Rappers Delight, Sucker MC's, King Tim III, Christmas Rappin, The Breaks, la di da di, and a TON of other all-time great sample free hip hop songs were dead and gone.
Man I could go on and on...hip hop was jumping hard in the 80's bro. TV just hadn't caught up to its fast pace. MTV nor anybody else even recognized West Coast gangsta rap until the early 90's and you know those cats were screaming waaaay before then.
Im not gonna debate it anymore tho, I'm getting out the way for some of these other hiphop historians to speak their peace. All in all, you make good points but you have to be refering to when hip hop went mainstream as far as "popularity but it was popular way before that.
Peace King,
dac