Alexander O'Neal: "Hearsay"

Was this the album that started the "mock concept album" trend that is still very much alive in hip-hop and contemporary R&B?
I mean, the way the album is put together, all the tracks are segued into each other, only interrupted by a bunch of people pretending to have a party. Janet Jackson and TLC, plus a zillion hip-hop acts, have later built their albums in the same way, within genres that are basically about as far from the ideals of prog rock as you may possibly get.

I do realise that particularly Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye were making concept albums in the 70s, but the idea of the concept album still seemed quite stone dead in most genres, but particularly R&B, by the mid 80s.

So, again, was "Hearsay" the first of these, or were there other "mock concept albums" within contemporary R&B or hip-hop before it?