The costumes came with a price. Critics wrote them off as a gimmick while ignoring that the band had some of the tightest horn arrangements and most locked-in rhythm sections of the 1980s funk era. The red codpiece got the attention, but it also got the condescension. They kept evolving, shifting from the dense funk of the 1970s to the electro-funk of the 1980s with an ease that most bands could not manage.

Word Up is the one. Released in 1986, the song became their biggest hit and one of the defining tracks of the 1980s funk revival that helped bring the genre back to mainstream attention. The bassline is so simple and so effective that it has been sampled by countless hip-hop producers and used in films and commercials for decades. The video featured Blackmon in the red codpiece and a military jacket, and the combination of image and groove was unstoppable at the time.

The album Word Up went platinum and proved that Cameo could compete with the pop charts without abandoning their funk foundation.

Cameo kept recording through the 1990s and 2000s, proving they were not a one-hit novelty. Larry Blackmon remained the constant through every lineup change, the only original member from the thirteen-piece collective that started it all. They influenced hip-hop producers, funk revivalists, and later R&B acts who borrowed their electro-funk sound. Word Up remains a track that fills any dance floor instantly. The red codpiece got the attention. The music behind it is even stronger and has outlasted the fashion.