André Cymone – What Are We Doing Here
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Extremely rare music video for the single from his 1983 album “Survivin’ In The 80′s”. This clip actually aired on MTV and BET a few times. Cymone was a New Wave pioneer, but sadly, you hardly hear anything about his role in the genre.
Video Rating: 4 / 5
actually the 3rd black person to be on mtv in terms of video was sylvester, i forgot the name of the song, but they actually played one his videos….it’s in sylvester’s biograpghy book from a few years ago…..peace
I have always LOVED this song out of all the music Andre’ created, THANK U FOR POSTING THIS RARE VIDEO!!
(If anyone has Ritz Club, could u post that as well?)
Presented in ThinVision™!
“do you wanna funk?” patrick cowley feauturing sylvester, 1982 # 4 dance hit
I think Andre is a combination of prince and Morris Day. Atleast image wise. But he is less accentric.
They all played in the places in Minneapolis in the late 70s/early 80s. Its a little surprising that Andre didn’t make it considering that when all three of them were in bands, Andres band got the biggest crowds and Morris ended up being a alter-ego for Prince professionally.
Joeblow394, Amen…You could not have stated this better!
Azone01 you are so correct. Rick James Did have the testicular fortitude to stand up and call MTV out. Maybe he did not use the right tact and approach, but his message was correct. They were so overtly racist it was not funny. I was in high school when MTV started and we were so pissed that so few black artists could get on. Honestly, I am still not a big fan of MTV or more so the people that ran MTV the first few years. Really can’t stand them!
MTV’s first few years,very few black artists were on the channel. Those who were in MTV’s rotation included Eddy Grant, Tina Turner and Donna Summer. The very first non-white act played on MTV in the US was UK band The Specials, which featured an integrated line-up of white and black musicians and vocalists. The Specials’ video “Rat Race” was played as the 58th video on the station’s first day of broadcasting.
MTV rejected other black artists’ videos, such as Rick James’ “Super Freak,”
LUVd this obscure & awesome song!! I remember when I taped this off the radio onto cassette tape lol
Thanks for posting it for us – I’ll try to get it on mp3 for the gym since I used to work out to it ‘back in the day’ =)
dburse66, so true, it wasn’t until Michael Jackson Thriller, then they were forced to play at least him. MTV fact, Rap videos had to have at least one white guy in the vidoe for MTV to play it. If you watch some old Dr. Dre videos from the Chronic there was always some random out of place white guy in the video.
vdogg43 Thanks for recognizing the statements. Now I will say that of course MTV, BET, VH1 all play a better variety of videos now. Good to see more county acts, crossover, and true Latino acts, etc. By the way, All three of these entities are owned by Viacom now. Plus isn’t it great to see guys like Eminem and Pall Wall who are white guys, true to their game and flourishing in Hip Hop. And those two for sure are not sellouts and pushed by an industry for their color. They can put it down!
Great stuff. I use to wear this album out back in the day. Anybody got his first 2 albums that they could copy for me??
he sounds a lot like Prince. i wonder why Andre’s career wasn’t as prolific as his peers. he and the looks and the talent.
@brucestrav, Andre Cymone, use to play guitar and was in Prince’s band.
@Azone01 Yeah Mtv literally like 4:23 am, on a sunday.
@vdogg43 HE played bass with prince
I lived at First Avenue in the early 80′s. Best time of my life, period. I remember this song like it was yesterday. Good stuff!
Very Rare,and worth listening to…!!!
I remember when this joint came out! After “Living In the New Wave” I expected a really good follow-up. Although “Survivin’” wasn’t totally wack, “Living” was the better LP. I thought with this video getting some play on MTV it would have become at least a minor hit. I guess it’ll remain one of those joints that only those who are aware of it will dig it. I think he modeled his band’s look a little to close to the Revolution though. Cool song!
@31769 I remember when this joint came out! After “Living In the New Wave” I expected a really good follow-up. Although “Survivin’” wasn’t totally wack, “Living” was the better LP. I thought with this video getting some play on MTV it would have become at least a minor hit. I guess it’ll remain one of those joints that only those who are aware of it will dig it. I think he modeled his band’s look a little to close to the Revolution though. Cool song!
@lorimneal – Funny thing is, I was listening to his first LP, “Living in the New Wave” a few months ago with a friend. He said something I hadn’t thought of. I was accustomed to hearing people compare Andre to Prince that I didn’t realize that Andre’s wailing vocal style is actually closer to Rick James’s style!
@lorimneal : Funny thing is, I was listening to his first LP, “Living in the New Wave” a few months ago with a friend. He said something I hadn’t thought of. I was accustomed to hearing people compare Andre to Prince that I didn’t realize that Andre’s wailing vocal style is actually closer to Rick James’s style!
Oh wow! I remember when this came out… I played it to DEATH on my high school radio show!! Thanks for posting!
I remember this song being played on MTV. Back in the day, before stereo televisions were common, cable TV companies offered this service where they hooked your TV up to your stereo, and you could listen to MTV, HBO, etc in stereo on the radio. Anyway, I used to make tapes from this signal, and one tape had this song on it, but I never knew the name of who it was. I only “It sort of sounds like Prince, but it’s not Prince”. Always dug this song!