Filed under: Black Music Month
In a perfect world, the Sugar Hill Gang would be unquestionably praised for their contribution to hip-hop. Their 1979 hit, 'Rapper's Delight,' was the genre's first pop crossover smash. Although that song still packs dance floors thirty years later, the New York trio's success will be forever shrouded in controversy.
According to hip-hop lore, the group started off as a novelty act. Sugar Hill Records honcho Sylvia Robinson, a former R&B singer, realized that recording rap music could be lucrative so she looked to create a group for the burgeoning label.
After hearing some DJs rapping over records at a party, Robinson tasked her son Joey to find emcees that she could record. Joey tapped his friend Henry Jackson, who was a bouncer and part-time hip-hop manager at the time. Since Jackson was not exactly adept at rhyming, legend has it that he asked Grandmaster Caz (short for Casanova) of the Cold Crush Brothers to borrow some rhymes from his rap notebook with the promise that once Jackson (who went by the name Big Bank Hank) got signed, then he'd look out for Caz and Cold Crush.
But in perhaps the first major example of a shady hip-hop deal, that didn't happen. Jackson linked with Master Gee (Guy O'Brien) and Wonder Mike (Mike Wright) to form Sugar Hill Gang and record 'Rapper's Delight,' which went on to sell 2 million copies and solidify hip-hop as viable recorded music, not just limited to live DJ gigs and park jams.
The evidence of Jackson's plagiary is so blatant. He even spells Caz's name at one point: "I'm the C-A-S-A-N-O-V-A..." The record, which is built on the groove of Chic's 'Good Times,' represents a tipping point when commerce made its first real mark on the art form.
In his retrospective of the seminal label, 'A Complete Introduction of Sugar Hill Records,' one-time in-house drummer Keith LeBlanc told the 'Village Voice' that among the rap community at the time, the trio wasn't accepted as real rappers but instead three dudes who just "got lucky."
"For Big Bank Hank, they definitely had to write raps for him. I know the Furious Five helped him write at times, and [fellow Sugar Hill Gang member] Wonder Mike would help him. Sometimes Sylvia Robinson would even help write lyrics for them. It was a joke in the company -- they'd make jokes in the studio under their breath. It was also kinda a joke that it was really hard to make them sound funky. Compared to the Furious Five, Spoonie Gee or Kool Moe Dee, it was night and day. To be honest with you, the only one in the Sugar Hill Gang to me that was creative was Wonder Mike. He wrote all his own stuff and was a funny guy. He could have been a comedian. He used to do this routine where he'd do an imitation of a black weather man, like how a black rapper would do the weather, cause in those days there weren't any black people on TV."
Though the Sugar Hill Gang released a couple other moderate hits - '8th Wonder' and 'Apache' - the trio never eclipsed the success of 'Rapper's Delight.'
These days, the trio still packs in crowds at nostalgia rap tour dates around the globe.
Influenced...DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, MC Hammer, Soulja Boy
'Rapper's Delight'