"Rapper's Delight" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Single by The Sugarhill Gang | ||||
from the album Sugarhill Gang | ||||
Released | September 16, 1979 | |||
Format | 12" | |||
Recorded | August 1979 | |||
Genre | Old-school hip hop, disco, funk | |||
Length | 3:55 (single version) 14:35 (album version) |
|||
Label | Sugar Hill | |||
Writer(s) | The Sugarhill Gang, Sylvia Robinson, Nile Rodgers, Bernard Edwards, Grandmaster Caz | |||
Producer(s) | Sylvia Robinson | |||
The Sugarhill Gang singles chronology | ||||
|
"Rapper's Delight" is a hip-hop song released in September 1979 by The Sugarhill Gang, and produced by ex-Mickey and Sylvia member Sylvia Robinson.
While it was not the first single to feature rapping, it is generally considered to be the song that introduced hip hop music to audiences in the United States and around the world. The song is ranked number 251 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and number 2 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs. It is also included in NPR's list of the 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century. It was preserved into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress in 2011. Songs on the National Recording Registry are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
The song also notably includes musical parts from Chic's "Good Times", resulting in band members Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards suing Sugar Hill Records over copyright; a settlement reached allowed the two to receive songwriter credits.
The song was recorded in a single take. There are three versions of the original version of the song: 14:35 (12" long version), 6:30 (12" short version), and 4:55 (7" shortened single version).
In late 1978, Debbie Harry suggested that Chic's Nile Rodgers join her and Chris Stein at a hip hop event, which at the time was a communal space taken over by teenagers with boombox stereos playing various pieces of music that performers would break dance to. Rodgers experienced this event the first time himself at a high school in the Bronx. On September 20 and 21, 1979, Blondie and Chic were playing concerts with The Clash in New York at The Palladium. When Chic started playing "Good Times", rapper Fab Five Freddy and the members of the Sugarhill Gang ("Big Bank Hank" Jackson, Mike Wright, and "Master Gee" O'Brien), jumped up on stage and started freestyling with the band. A few weeks later Rodgers was on the dance floor of New York club Leviticus and heard the DJ play a song which opened with Bernard Edwards's bass line from Chic's "Good Times". Rodgers approached the DJ who said he was playing a record he had just bought that day in Harlem. The song turned out to be an early version of "Rapper's Delight", which also included a scratched version of the song's string section. Rodgers and Edwards immediately threatened legal action over copyright, which resulted in a settlement and their being credited as co-writers. Rodgers admitted that he was originally upset with the song, but later declared it to be "one of his favorite songs of all time" and his favorite of all the tracks that sampled (or in this instance interpolated) Chic. He also stated: "As innovative and important as 'Good Times' was, 'Rapper's Delight' was just as much, if not more so."