Cubie Burke (1964) was one of the first GenXers of note in music. His family, the Burkes, had a vocal group, the Five Stairsteps. When Cubie was three years old, he began performing with them, mostly dancing. He went over big with audiences and they marketed the act around him. He even sang lead on some songs, including “New Dance Craze.” But he wasn’t that interested in singing, and had stopped performing with the Stairsteps by the time they had their big hit in 1970, “O-o-h Child”.*

Cubie’s interests lay more in dancing than singing (although he did release a single, “Down for Double”, under his own name in 1982, which was still early days for GenX in music), and he eventually had a distinguished career as a dancer, dance teacher, and choreographer. Died young, of complications from an old brain injury, in 2014. He didn’t get the hit song. But he did what he wanted to do.

*”O-o-h Child” is a notable for-GenX song itself. It’s sung from the perspective of an older person telling a younger person, presumably a small child, that things may be terrible now but, someday, they’ll be better, and we’ll live to see it.

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Platforms; Pagan Kennedy. St. Martin’s Press, 1994. Page 131.
“The Five Stairsteps and Cubie – 1968 – Our Family Portrait”. Album review on funkmysoul.gr website.
“The Five Stairsteps”. Biography on last.fm website.
“Cubie Burke Dies…”; Bill Buckley. Article on soulandjazzandfunk.com website, 2014.