29 July 2008
Rap Goes Mainstream
“Rapper’s Delight” introduces millions to hip-hop
(The following is excerpted from the U.S. Department of State publication, American Popular Music.)
Until 1979 hip-hop music remained primarily a local phenomenon. The first indication of the genre’s broader commercial potential was the 12-inch dance single “Rapper’s Delight,” recorded by the Sugarhill Gang, a crew based in Harlem. This record, which popularized the use of the term “rapper” as an equivalent for MC, established Sugar Hill Records – a black-owned independent label based in New Jersey – as the predominant institutional force in rap music during the early 1980s. The recording recycled the rhythm section track from Chic’s “Good Times,” played in the studio by session musicians usually hired by Sugar Hill to back R&B singers. The three rappers – Michael “Wonder Mike” Wright, Guy “Master Gee” O’Brien, and Henry “Big Bank Hank” Jackson – recited a rapid-fire succession of rhymes, typical of the performances of MCs at hip-hop dances.
Well it’s on-n-on-n-on-on-n-on
The beat don’t stop until the break
of dawn
I said M-A-S, T-E-R, a G with a
double E
I said I go by the unforgettable name
Of the man they call the Master Gee
Well, my name is known all over the
world
By all the foxy ladies and the pretty
girls
I’m goin’ down in history
As the baddest rapper there could
ever be.
The text of “Rapper’s Delight” alternates the braggadocio of the three MCs with descriptions of dance movements, exhortations to the audience, and humorous stories and references. One particularly memorable segment describes the consternation of a guest who is served rotting food by his friend’s mother, seeks a polite way to refuse it, and finally escapes by crashing through the apartment door. The record reached Number Four on the R&B chart and Number 36 on the pop chart and introduced hip-hop to millions of people throughout the United States and abroad. The unexpected success of “Rapper’s Delight” ushered in a series of million-selling 12-inch singles by New York rappers, including Kurtis Blow’s “The Breaks,” “Planet Rock,” by Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force, and “The Message,” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.
The tradition of socially engaged rap received its strongest new impetus from the New York-based group Public Enemy. Founded in 1982, Public Enemy was organized around a core set of members who met as college students, drawn together by their interest in hip-hop culture and political activism. The standard hip-hop configuration of two MCs – Chuck D (a.k.a. Carlton Ridenhour, b. 1960) and Flavor Flav (William Drayton, b. 1959) – plus a DJ – Terminator X (Norman Lee Rogers, b. 1966) – was augmented by a “Minister of Information” (Professor Griff, a.k.a. Richard Griffin) and by the Security of the First World (S1W), a cohort of dancers who dressed in paramilitary uniforms, carried Uzi submachine guns, and performed martial arts-inspired choreography.
The release of Public Enemy’s second album in 1988 – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back – was a breakthrough event for rap music. The album fused the trenchant social and political analyses of Chuck D – delivered in a deep, authoritative voice – with the streetwise interjections of his sidekick Flavor Flav, who wore comical glasses and an oversized clock around his neck. Their complex verbal interplay was situated within a dense, multilayered sonic web created by the group’s production team, the Bomb Squad (Hank Shocklee, Keith Shocklee, and Eric “Vietnam” Sadler). Tracks like “Countdown to Armageddon” (an apocalyptic opening instrumental track, taped at a live concert in London), “Don’t Believe the Hype” (a critique of white-dominated mass media), and “Party for Your Right to Fight” (a parody of the Beastie Boys’ hit “Fight for Your Right (to Party),” from the previous year) turned the technology of digital sampling to new artistic purposes and insisted in effect that rap music continue to engage with the real-life conditions of urban black communities.
During the 1990s, a number of important rap artists achieved mainstream success, among them M.C. Hammer (Stanley Kirk Burrell, b. 1962), whose Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em, held the Number One position for 21 weeks and sold over 10 million copies, becoming the bestselling rap album of all time, and the white rapper Vanilla Ice (Robert Van Winkle, b. 1968). Regional hip-hop dialects emerged, notably in southern California, where a smoother, more laid-back style of rapping gained traction.
Today, rap music and hip-hop culture continue to influence and inspire musicians and audiences around the world.
[This article is excerpted from American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3 by Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman, published by Oxford University Press, copyright (2003, 2007), and offered in an abridged edition by the Bureau of International Information Programs.]
