Hip-Hop, Hippie to the Hippie

The Sugarhill Gang : Rapper's Delight

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On September 16, 1979 The Sugarhill Gang released "Rapper's Delight", the breakout Top 40 single of the year for a new kind of sound, hip hop. In fact the genre gets its name from the opening lines rattled off by Wonder Mike: "Hip-hop, hippie to the hippie, to the hip-hip-hop and you don't stop". Right from the start you'll hear some of rap's signature characteristics: boasting MC's, dancing, humor, sex and what would soon be called sampling. "Rapper's Delight" borrows its music wholesale from Chic's #1 smash hit "Good Times". Eventually Bernie Edwards and Nile Rodgers got the writing credit and Rodgers now performs at least a portion of "Rapper's Delight" every time he plays "Good Times" in front of an audience. 

 "“Rapper’s Delight’ is one of my favorite songs of all time. At first, I admit, I was pissed off. You work your whole life to write a song like ‘Good Times.’ It takes all of your experience, all of your music lessons, all the places I got fired, all the times I was robbed — all of that living. But the truth is, I was especially pissed because as innovative and important as ‘Good Times’ was, ‘Rapper’s Delight’ was just as much, if not more so. " Rodgers told Blender.

It was Sylivia "Pillow Talk " Robinson's independent label Sugarhill Records that released the single, supposedly recorded in a single 14:30 take with 17 year old Chip Shearin on bass. "The drummer and I were sweating bullets because that's a long time.," he told the Raleigh News and Observer. "And this was in the days before samplers and drum machines, when real humans had to play things. ... Sylvia said, 'I've got these kids who are going to talk real fast over it; that's the best way I can describe it".  

"The kids", Wonder Mike, Big Bank Hank and Master Gee, weren't the biggest hip hop stars in New York. Lovebug Starski, Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa believed rapping was an art form that had to be performed live, not captured on tape. But here it is, 40 years later. As the editor of 2003's "Classic Material: The Hip-Hop Album Guide" Oliver Wang put it, "it's a pretty impressive fabrication, lightning in a bottle".