Rapper's Delight
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"Rapper's Delight" is a 1979 single by American hip hop trio The Sugarhill Gang; it is widely acknowledged as the first hip hop hit single. (Fatback Band's "King Tim III (Personality Jock)" was released a few months prior, but has been overshadowed somewhat in history by "Rapper's Delight.")
"Rapper's Delight" hit #36 on the US pop charts, #4 on the US R&B charts, and #3 on the UK singles chart. It was the first hip hop single to go gold. The following year, the song was the anchor of the group's first album, The Sugarhill Gang. In spite of a few more minor hits, The Sugarhill Gang quickly faded into obscurity.
It was the first Top 40 song to be available ONLY as a 12-inch extended version--no 7", 45-RPM record was made.
The song inspired Blondie's 1980 hit, "Rapture", which is considered by some to be the second major hip-hop hit after Rapper's Delight.
Grandmaster Caz from the Cold Crush Brothers claims that Sugarhill Gang member Big Bank Hank used his rhymes on Rapper's Delight. The verse in which Big Bank Hank raps Caz's name ("I'm the C A S A N O V A") seems to support this claim.
To honor the song that many believe started it all, Erick Sermon, Redman, and Keith Murray covered the song in 1998.
The Spanish summer hit, Aserejé (2002) (released as The Ketchup Song in Germany, Norway, the UK, and the US), sung by Las Ketchup, tells the story of a boy who asks a DJ to play the "song he desires most". Since he cannot produce the correct title, he mispronounces the first lines of Rapper's Delight: "I say the hip hop, the hip..." which becomes the meaningless refrain "Aserejé ja dejé...".
The song was used in the final stages of an imaginative Honda commercial/advert, The Cog, in the United Kingdom in 2003/2004.
On December 1 2004, BBC 1Xtra celebrated the 25th anniversary of its entry into the British charts by broadcasting a revised recording of Rapper's Delight performed by several English rappers.
Predecessors
Like many songs from the time, "Rapper's Delight" was performed over the instrumental track of a disco hit (played by the group Positive Force), in this case CHIC's "Good Times".References to this song
- The lyric in this song "What you hear is not a test." was also said in ShG's hit song Apache.
- In an episode of For Your Love, Mel (James Lesure) is stunned to learn that Malena (Holly Robinson Peete) does not know all the lyrics to "Rapper's Delight", telling his brother and friends that he would never have married her if he had realized this beforehand.
- In an episode of Scrubs, J.D. (Zach Braff) gives Turk (Donald Faison) a Sugarhill Gang alarm clock as a wedding gift. When it goes off, the rappers appear, performing "Rapper's Delight".
- Phrases in this song are referenced by numerous hip hop and R&B artists, as an homage to the first commercially successful rap track. Artists include Run DMC, TLC, Kid Rock, Wyclef Jean, Lil' Kim, The Beastie Boys, Afroman, and Limp Bizkit.
In the media
- Played in the 1979 movie The Demon.
- Resung in the 1998 movie The Wedding Singer.
- Played in the 1999 video game Thrasher: Skate And Destroy
- Played in the 2004 video game Tony Hawk's Underground 2.
- Played in the 2005 video game .
- Played in the 2005 video game Pump It Up Exceed SE.
External links
- [Silver jubilee for first rap hit] - BBC article about the single on its 25th anniversary
- [Lyrics]
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