Rapper's delight for the most part

The song "Rapper's delight" is often considered to be the first hip hop hit track in history. While it has achieved legendary status over the decades, its background is far less known, and for more storied than most would assume...

“Rapper’s delight” is just that for most listeners: an infectious beat (courtesy for Chic’s Nile Rodgers: more on that later), a group of gifted MCs rhyming in unison (also more on that later), an original 15-minute long version (you guessed it: more on that later too) that served in many ways as a musical manifesto… And it did pretty much that: released in 1979, the Sugarhill Gang‘s track cracked the Billboard top 40 (historic for a hip hop song — at at the time), going all the way to #3 in the UK. Ever the tastemakers, even a song was not created by one of their own…

What is, however, far more notorious is how this song — and the group that performed it — came about. And that all starts with a lady called Sylvia Robinson. An RnB singer for several decades prior to that story, she’d eventually cut down on the performing and started her own record label in the 1970’s. What follows is still debated, but it appears she decided to start a hip hop group after having heard MC’s at a New York party and astutely concluded that she was listening to the sound of the future. There is even more dispute as to how the MC’s were picked, as one of the members, Big Band Hank, was accused by fellow musician and hip hop pioneer Grandmaster Caz to have effectively stolen his spot. Regardless, Robinson managed to assemble a very strong line-up and went to record the piece…

The next hurdle, however, was finding a beat for said piece: the practice of sampling was still in its infancy at the time, so what the team ultimately resorted to doing was find a bass player who would recreate Chic’s “Good Times” hook. Which was fine as such — only no one had thought to clear it with the band… That issue was ultimately solved and the Chic crew got credited — and compensated — for the “loan”. As for recording the 15-minute long track? It appears 17-year old Chip Shearin was tasked with playing the hook over and over again… for the duration of the song. For 70$. Then again, he was young…

Whether or not these facts are 100% accurate, and the notion that the Sugarhill Gang was somewhat marketed (then again, which band wasn’t?), what remains is that “Rapper’s delight” is still an amazing listen today. And paved the way for so many more hip hop songs in the decades that followed, to the point when the genre has now all but taken over that very same Billboard chart… To many artists’ delight.