Sugar Samples
Delightfully Sweet
Published: 11/1/2022
By: Gordon “G Daddy” Dawson
In 1979, Rapper's Delight, by The Sugar Hill Gang, dropped. Me and my 6th-grade friends, Craig and Matt, ran and bought a copy. Now, picture each of us sitting in a bedroom filled with KISS posters, a massive rack of stereo equipment with speakers to match in size, black lights, lava lamps, a beige touch-tone phone, and a pair of roller skates in the corner by the door. We each take parts and do our best to memorize and recite this incredibly long and vocally challenging new genre to hit the airwaves. Rapper's Delight became the first rap song to enter the US Hot 100 chart and peaked at number 36. Additionally, it was the first rap song to use a sample taken from the 1978 hit "Good Times" by Chic.
Produced by Sylvia Robinson on Sugar Hill Records, Rappers Delight sampled the iconic bass line that would make this an epic hit. The record label was named after an affluent black neighborhood in Sugar Hill Harlem with notable residents like Duke Ellington, Thurgood Marshall, and Cab Calloway. Sylvia compiled three rappers, Michael "Wonder Mike" Wright, Henry "Big Bank Hank" Jackson, and Guy "Master Gee" O'Brien, all from Englewood, NJ, to craft this comical, soulful, rhythmic poem of lyrics. It truly took the radio and skating rinks by storm and became a fan favorite everywhere.
Sylvia made her recording career with her 1956 duet hit with Mickey Baker called Love is Strange, and her 1973 solo hit, Pillow Talk Sylvia is credited as the driving force behind two landmark singles in the hip-hop genre: Rapper's Delight and "The Message" from Grandmaster Flash https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYMkEMCHtJ4
She became dubbed "The Mother of Hip Hop," and in 2022, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as the major influence on the creative development of hip-hop's early successes.
Craig H. became the voice behind Big Bank Hank, Matt became Wonder Mike, and I, of course, became the voice of Master Gee. We had sleepovers and would stay up for hours listening over and over to each of our parts, painstakingly writing down each word, trying to be black enough to capture the rhythm of each lyric. As we rotated houses to have sleepovers, I'm sure each of the parents was thrilled when it was their turn to have us over.
Weirdly, and it blew our 11-year-old minds. The album had a 6.5-minute side and a nearly 15-minute side on the same album! Now we had to pick which side to learn?! We kept it to the ~7-minute side to keep up with our rigorous middle school homework requirements. Before too long, as our minds were like a sponge and muscle memory took over, we each could recite nearly all of our parts and quite effectively pull off the greatest rap song (in my opinion) to ever get created. The Sugar Hill Gang went on to pave the way through this genre and style of music for artists to creatively convey their own lives and story.
Context
Thoughts
– Why do you think Hip-Hop/Rap continues to be a major genre of music?
– What's your favorite all-time Hip-Hop band?
– But can he rock a party 'til the early light?
