On this day in 1980, “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang became the first hip hop song ever to break into the Billboard Top 40.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that spits the greatest hits of history one
day at a time. I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're
talking about the controversial origin of the first commercial rap
(00:21):
recording in music history, the iconic and lengthy Rappers Delight.
The day was January five, Rappers Delight by the sugar
Hill Gang became the first hip hop song ever to
(00:42):
break into the Billboard Top forty. The single landed at
number thirty seven for the week ending January five, and
it later creeped up a spot to number thirty six.
The song's appearance in the Top forty signaled the transition
of hip hop from a largely under round art form
to a mainstream commercial genre. It was a clear outlier
(01:05):
among other popular acts of the time like Kenny Rogers,
Abba and Casey in the Sunshine Band, but many Americans
were itching to leave the disco era behind, and Rappers
Delight provided the brand new sound they had been looking for.
It's unlikely that you've never heard the song before, but
just in case, it goes like this, I said a
(01:28):
hit inhibited a hit hobby. You don't stop the record
to the band name, but you say up jumped the
Bigot to the rhythm of the Big Bat. Now what
you hear is not a testop rappid to the B
and me the groove and my friends are gonna try
to move defeat seem In the nineteen seventies, hip hop
(01:50):
wasn't well known outside of the music scene in the
Bronx and Harlem, and even in those neighborhoods, you couldn't
walk into a record store and buy a hip hop album.
If you wanted to hear mcs rapping and DJ's scratching,
then you had to go to a club or a
house party and hear it live for yourself. At the time,
pioneering performers like DJ Grandmaster Flash, d J cool Herk,
(02:15):
and Curtis Blow weren't recording their music. In fact, they
worried that if they did, people would lose interest in
their live shows and the little income they were earning
from their music would disappear. That may have been true
if the only audience for hip hop were the people
who lived in the neighborhoods where it was first being played,
(02:36):
But one New Jersey businesswoman believed the music could actually
have much wider appeal. Her name was Sylvia Robinson, and
in nineteen seventy nine she experienced hip hop for the
first time, like most other people in those days, live
at a nightclub in New York City, she was amazed
(02:56):
by a DJ named love Bug Starsky, who spinning R
and B records and leading the crowd through spoken word
rhymes set to the beat. She later recalled the moment
saying quote, I saw him talking to the kids and
saw how they'd answer back. He would say something every
now and then, like throw your hands in the air,
(03:16):
and they do it. If he had said jump in
the river, they'd have done it. A spirit said to me,
put a concept like that on a record, and it
will be the biggest thing you ever had. Sylvia had
no ties to hip hop, but she did know a
lot about the music business. Throughout the nineteen seventies, she
(03:36):
found success as an R and B singer, both in
a group and as a solo act. By seventy nine,
she had made the switch to producing, and the untapped
potential of hip hop seemed like a promising next move.
Rather than approach and existing act, Sylvia decided to put
together a brand new group herself. She enlisted her son
(04:00):
Joey Robinson for help and finding a good MC, and
lucky for her, he knew just the guy. Joey drove
his mom to Crispy Crust Pizza and Inglewood, New Jersey
to pay a visit to one of the employees there,
a man named Henry Jackson a k A. Big Bank Hank.
(04:20):
Jackson graciously used his lunch break to audition for Sylvia,
which he did by climbing into the backseat of her
car and rapping along to a backing track played on
a cassette deck. Joey had also scouted two other promising
local m c s, Guy O'Brien a k A Master
G and Mike Wright a k A Wonder Mike. They
(04:44):
joined the impromptu audition, and when Sylvia liked what she heard,
she dubbed the newly formed trio the sugar Hill Gang
after the sugar Hill area of Harlem. All of that
happened on a Friday afternoon, and by the following Monday,
the group gup was ready to record their first track
at a studio in Englewood. That's a quick turnaround for
(05:06):
a whole new song so the group opted to put
their own spin on an existing rhythm track. Instead, Sylvia
chose the hit disco song good Times by the band
Chic as the backbone of the recording. However, since time
was tight, no one reached out to the band for
permission to use the track. That decision eventually led to
(05:27):
a lengthy lawsuit, which was settled out of court for
an undisclosed sum. When it was time to record, Sylvia
threw on good Times and the three rappers huddled around
a mic in the cramped studio booth. Sylvia pointed to
each rapper when it was their turn at the mic,
and despite having barely rehearsed, they made it through the
(05:47):
epic fifteen minute track with hardly any mistakes. It was
a good thing too, because Big Bank Hank didn't have
much time to spare. He was due back at the
Crispy Crust within the hour. If you're wondering how the
fledgling group came up with fifteen minutes worth of lyrics
in less than seventy two hours, well they had some
(06:10):
help with that too. Big Bank Hank actually took most
of the lyrics from his friend and fellow MC grand
Master Kaz of the Cold Crush Brothers. Kaz later described
the interaction saying, quote, Hank asked me if he could
borrow my rhyme book, So I just threw it on
the table. I was kind of nonchalant about it. I'm
(06:31):
not thinking anything is going to come from it, and
if it did by happenstance, then all right, well, hey,
he comes from us, so if there's any trickle down,
it'll trickle down to us. And as far as trying
to protect myself, and we didn't know about lawyers and
publishing and writers and mechanical royalties or nothing like that,
(06:51):
we weren't part of the music industry. In the end,
Rappers Delight did what no one, including Kaz had expected did.
It became an international hit, And even though Kaz didn't
make money from the song or even get a writing credit,
he never sued the group. Instead, he chose to keep
(07:12):
moving forward, eventually signing to Tough City Records and releasing
his own albums. For hip hop purists, it's bitter sweet
that Rappers Delight became most listeners introduction to hip hop.
From their perspective, there were other rappers much more deserving
of the honor ones who wrote their own lyrics and
came up with their own beats, or at least asked
(07:34):
permission to use somebody else's. But there's no one element
that made Rappers Delight a great song. Instead, it's everything
working together. The baseline of sheiks track, the clever, unexpected
rhymes of Grandmaster Kaz and the raw vocal stylings of
three m c s who had just met three days earlier.
(07:56):
The beats and lyrics may have come from other artists,
but still via Robinson, Big Bank, Hank, Master G and
Wonder Mike put their own spin on all of it,
improvising in the studio to make the song their own.
When Rappers Delight was released in December nine, it was
a smash hit from the start. It's shot to number
(08:18):
four on the US Hot Soul Singles chart and eventually
peaked at number thirty six on the Billboard Hot one hundred.
Outside the US, the track was even more successful. It
topped the charts in the Netherlands, Canada, and Spain, and
made it into the top five and nine other countries.
All told, the twelve inch single sold over two million copies,
(08:43):
proving that there was plenty of interest and money in
hip hop recordings. Despite the unusual origins of rappers delight,
the song was a game changer for the butting hip
hop genre. The Sugar Hill Gang never had another hit,
but every apper and group that followed OH is at
least a small debt of thanks to the group that
(09:05):
paved their way, even if they'd rather not admit it.
I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you now know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. If you'd
like to keep up with the show, you can follow
us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t d i
HC Show, and if you have any comments or suggestions,
(09:28):
you can send them my way at this Day at
i heart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for
producing the show, and thanks to you for listening. I'll
see you back here again tomorrow for another Day in
History class. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
(09:54):
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where ever you
listen to your favorite shows.
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that spits the greatest hits of history one
day at a time. I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're
talking about the controversial origin of the first commercial rap
(00:21):
recording in music history, the iconic and lengthy Rappers Delight.
The day was January five, Rappers Delight by the sugar
Hill Gang became the first hip hop song ever to
(00:42):
break into the Billboard Top forty. The single landed at
number thirty seven for the week ending January five, and
it later creeped up a spot to number thirty six.
The song's appearance in the Top forty signaled the transition
of hip hop from a largely under round art form
to a mainstream commercial genre. It was a clear outlier
(01:05):
among other popular acts of the time like Kenny Rogers,
Abba and Casey in the Sunshine Band, but many Americans
were itching to leave the disco era behind, and Rappers
Delight provided the brand new sound they had been looking for.
It's unlikely that you've never heard the song before, but
just in case, it goes like this, I said a
(01:28):
hit inhibited a hit hobby. You don't stop the record
to the band name, but you say up jumped the
Bigot to the rhythm of the Big Bat. Now what
you hear is not a testop rappid to the B
and me the groove and my friends are gonna try
to move defeat seem In the nineteen seventies, hip hop
(01:50):
wasn't well known outside of the music scene in the
Bronx and Harlem, and even in those neighborhoods, you couldn't
walk into a record store and buy a hip hop album.
If you wanted to hear mcs rapping and DJ's scratching,
then you had to go to a club or a
house party and hear it live for yourself. At the time,
pioneering performers like DJ Grandmaster Flash, d J cool Herk,
(02:15):
and Curtis Blow weren't recording their music. In fact, they
worried that if they did, people would lose interest in
their live shows and the little income they were earning
from their music would disappear. That may have been true
if the only audience for hip hop were the people
who lived in the neighborhoods where it was first being played,
(02:36):
But one New Jersey businesswoman believed the music could actually
have much wider appeal. Her name was Sylvia Robinson, and
in nineteen seventy nine she experienced hip hop for the
first time, like most other people in those days, live
at a nightclub in New York City, she was amazed
(02:56):
by a DJ named love Bug Starsky, who spinning R
and B records and leading the crowd through spoken word
rhymes set to the beat. She later recalled the moment
saying quote, I saw him talking to the kids and
saw how they'd answer back. He would say something every
now and then, like throw your hands in the air,
(03:16):
and they do it. If he had said jump in
the river, they'd have done it. A spirit said to me,
put a concept like that on a record, and it
will be the biggest thing you ever had. Sylvia had
no ties to hip hop, but she did know a
lot about the music business. Throughout the nineteen seventies, she
(03:36):
found success as an R and B singer, both in
a group and as a solo act. By seventy nine,
she had made the switch to producing, and the untapped
potential of hip hop seemed like a promising next move.
Rather than approach and existing act, Sylvia decided to put
together a brand new group herself. She enlisted her son
(04:00):
Joey Robinson for help and finding a good MC, and
lucky for her, he knew just the guy. Joey drove
his mom to Crispy Crust Pizza and Inglewood, New Jersey
to pay a visit to one of the employees there,
a man named Henry Jackson a k A. Big Bank Hank.
(04:20):
Jackson graciously used his lunch break to audition for Sylvia,
which he did by climbing into the backseat of her
car and rapping along to a backing track played on
a cassette deck. Joey had also scouted two other promising
local m c s, Guy O'Brien a k A Master
G and Mike Wright a k A Wonder Mike. They
(04:44):
joined the impromptu audition, and when Sylvia liked what she heard,
she dubbed the newly formed trio the sugar Hill Gang
after the sugar Hill area of Harlem. All of that
happened on a Friday afternoon, and by the following Monday,
the group gup was ready to record their first track
at a studio in Englewood. That's a quick turnaround for
(05:06):
a whole new song so the group opted to put
their own spin on an existing rhythm track. Instead, Sylvia
chose the hit disco song good Times by the band
Chic as the backbone of the recording. However, since time
was tight, no one reached out to the band for
permission to use the track. That decision eventually led to
(05:27):
a lengthy lawsuit, which was settled out of court for
an undisclosed sum. When it was time to record, Sylvia
threw on good Times and the three rappers huddled around
a mic in the cramped studio booth. Sylvia pointed to
each rapper when it was their turn at the mic,
and despite having barely rehearsed, they made it through the
(05:47):
epic fifteen minute track with hardly any mistakes. It was
a good thing too, because Big Bank Hank didn't have
much time to spare. He was due back at the
Crispy Crust within the hour. If you're wondering how the
fledgling group came up with fifteen minutes worth of lyrics
in less than seventy two hours, well they had some
(06:10):
help with that too. Big Bank Hank actually took most
of the lyrics from his friend and fellow MC grand
Master Kaz of the Cold Crush Brothers. Kaz later described
the interaction saying, quote, Hank asked me if he could
borrow my rhyme book, So I just threw it on
the table. I was kind of nonchalant about it. I'm
(06:31):
not thinking anything is going to come from it, and
if it did by happenstance, then all right, well, hey,
he comes from us, so if there's any trickle down,
it'll trickle down to us. And as far as trying
to protect myself, and we didn't know about lawyers and
publishing and writers and mechanical royalties or nothing like that,
(06:51):
we weren't part of the music industry. In the end,
Rappers Delight did what no one, including Kaz had expected did.
It became an international hit, And even though Kaz didn't
make money from the song or even get a writing credit,
he never sued the group. Instead, he chose to keep
(07:12):
moving forward, eventually signing to Tough City Records and releasing
his own albums. For hip hop purists, it's bitter sweet
that Rappers Delight became most listeners introduction to hip hop.
From their perspective, there were other rappers much more deserving
of the honor ones who wrote their own lyrics and
came up with their own beats, or at least asked
(07:34):
permission to use somebody else's. But there's no one element
that made Rappers Delight a great song. Instead, it's everything
working together. The baseline of sheiks track, the clever, unexpected
rhymes of Grandmaster Kaz and the raw vocal stylings of
three m c s who had just met three days earlier.
(07:56):
The beats and lyrics may have come from other artists,
but still via Robinson, Big Bank, Hank, Master G and
Wonder Mike put their own spin on all of it,
improvising in the studio to make the song their own.
When Rappers Delight was released in December nine, it was
a smash hit from the start. It's shot to number
(08:18):
four on the US Hot Soul Singles chart and eventually
peaked at number thirty six on the Billboard Hot one hundred.
Outside the US, the track was even more successful. It
topped the charts in the Netherlands, Canada, and Spain, and
made it into the top five and nine other countries.
All told, the twelve inch single sold over two million copies,
(08:43):
proving that there was plenty of interest and money in
hip hop recordings. Despite the unusual origins of rappers delight,
the song was a game changer for the butting hip
hop genre. The Sugar Hill Gang never had another hit,
but every apper and group that followed OH is at
least a small debt of thanks to the group that
(09:05):
paved their way, even if they'd rather not admit it.
I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you now know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. If you'd
like to keep up with the show, you can follow
us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t d i
HC Show, and if you have any comments or suggestions,
(09:28):
you can send them my way at this Day at
i heart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for
producing the show, and thanks to you for listening. I'll
see you back here again tomorrow for another Day in
History class. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
(09:54):
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where ever you
listen to your favorite shows.
This Day in History Class News
Host
Gabe Luzier
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