There's really only one way to greet Larry Blackmon, the nasal voice of veteran band Cameo: "Word up!"

It's a phrase that will forever be associated with Backmon and his band. The title of a massive 1986 hit single and album, Word Up remains, to some, the beginning and end of the Cameo story.

But there is much more than meets the retro-ear to the band that began life tearin' it up as New York City's answer to P-Funk, played a key role in the development of hip-hop, ruled the R&B charts for most of the '80s and is still very much alive.

So word up, LB! Or perhaps we should rephrase that.

"If I didn't have anything else to go on I would say yeah," Blackmon says. "But we've sold close to 10 million records. And it's not going to end with whatever we've done; we intend to do more.

"There are people who would die for a lot of what we've accomplished. Everybody should be so fortunate. Now, the question lies in whether or not you want to try to do that for the rest of your life.

"The law of averages and statistics say that's going to be a challenge. But that's not what we're in it to do. We are who we are; we do what we do. And we're grateful for what comes from it."

Over the phone from his home in Atlanta, the city the band has called home for over 20 years, Blackmon comes across as humble and indeed grateful for all Cameo has given him. Certainly, this polite Southern-by-way-of-NYC gentleman sounds a long way from the manic, codpiece-sporting vocalist who will be fronting a funkified sextet this Friday at the Capital Music Hall.

But then Blackmon claims he and his band -- some of whom, like bassist Aaron Mills and guitarist Anthony Lockett, have been in place since the dawn of the 1980s -- never courted stardom, as such.

"There were a lot of musicians playing in a lot of different bands," the ex-Juilliard student recalls of the time, 30 years ago, when he first envisioned putting together a group of his own.

"So we were critics of those bands and tried to put together something that was different. It was more important for us to be noticed by other musicians than it was necessarily to be noticed by the public. It just became something that was commercially successful."

And how. From Cameo's dazzling 1977 debut, Cardiac Arrest, through singles like She's Strange, Single Life, Back and Forth and Candy, Blackmon and co. had an impressive run of R&B and pop hits.

Like most '80s acts, however, Cameo proved unable to maintain the hit-making pace into the '90s. Blackmon the wildman accepted a desk job at Warner Bros., "administrative co-ordinating" in the label's A&R department for three years.

It didn't -- couldn't -- last. But Blackmon jokes that it was at least an educational experience.

"I gained a greater understanding of how people were still keeping their jobs," Blackmon says.

"Someone told me those that are really good don't take jobs at record companies. I did learn a lot from it: I learned that I did not want to do administrative co-ordinating; I still wanted to be creative. I made a great deal of money during that period, and it was one of my most unhappy times ever."

Older and wiser, Blackmon and his musician's musicians returned to a busy touring schedule while making themselves available for collaborations with the likes of Mariah Carey. They're still turning out records, too; though, the public doesn't seem to take much notice of it. Call it a return to the band's roots.

"We're not trying to be a part of the rat race," Blackmon reminds us. "We're just doing our thing."

Word up!