Who was the first rap artist to appear on ‘Saturday Night Live’? Saturday Night Live’s legacy as America’s longest-running comedy sketch show is arguably secondary to its role in introducing hundreds of new musical acts to the nation over the past 50 years. On February 14th, 1981, Blondie were booked as the primary musical guest for Saturday Night Live’s Valentine’s Day episode. The band were also invited to bring another artist with them to the taping, though, and Debbie Harry campaigned for it to be the upstart New York rap group known as the Funky Four Plus One, AKA Funky 4+1. That’s how we wind up running into Debbie Harry.”The Funky Four didn’t get a huge boost from the SNL performance themselves.