I just bought some old time radio tapes. One of them called Gracie Allen for President. On them The Burns’s and their cast are actually rapping. I don’t mean sounds like, I mean this is an actual rap. If you put some urban funk music behind it, you could not tell how old it was.
I thought this was something that came from the early 80’s late 70’s.
Me too… I keep thinking of the Sugar Hill Gang, and others of that vintage–late 70’s/early 80’s
Rapping as a form of speech or spoken poetry goes quite a bit further back than the Sugar Hill Gang, but rapping was not associated with producing music or “songs” until the late 1970s.
During the late 1960s, there were quite a few records made of “angry young black men” rapping and the “Rap” in H. Rap Brown was not a nickname for Ralph, but a reference to his mastery of the language. (Brown’s birth name was Hubert Gerold Brown; he is now known as Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.)
I am frankly surprised to hear of George Burns and Gracie Allen “rapping,” but the verbal patter that is generally associated with rapping certainly dates to early in the 20th century. I have heard early tapes of Scatman Crothers and others delivering a fast, rhymed patter from much earlier than the 1960s.
One could argue that sea chanties, military marching yells, and other rhythmic songs designed to accompany monotonous tasks were early precursors to rap.
The roots of rap could well date back thousands of years to enslaved oarsmen aboard Mediterranean galleys.
Well, my first listen to what you could term a modern version of rap came from a certain Curtis Blow, who did a hilarious rap about his adventures in the South as a black man trying to pick up a lady. I heard it in my teens, which would mean the latest date would be 1979.
Then there was Gil Scott-Heron, whose “The Revolution Will Not be Televised” might maybe qualify. That would go back even further, to before 1974.
if one goes by Webster’s II New Collegiate Dictionary, and what a fine dictionary it is, the definition for “rap” that most pretains here would be “A form of popular music characterized by spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics with a syncopated reptitive rhythmic accompaniment.”
using that definition, i’d have to agree with Elmer J. Fudd
And all the artists mentioned above (Kurtis Blow, Sugar Hill Gang, etc.) are early recorded raps, but when something gets first gets recorded and when it starts may not be at the same time. I think rap probably got it’s cue from old slave/gospel hymns and/or the blues. Early raps were usually stories in some way or another. There’s another definition in this wonderful dictionary of mine which has rap as “to utter sharply” and “to blame or criticize”, and there is a saying “rap to me” or “rap with me”, meaning simply talk to me. My feeling is that early, pre-recorded raps were stories of hardship and whatnot, a la the blues. How it came to be rhymed over beats, couldn’t tell you that, but my theory is that two guys are the club, mid-seventies, disco’s playing and one guy is telling the other guy how his week went. But his head’s nodding to the disco beat and he just starts rhyming about his week, badda bing badda boom, Sugar Hill Gang’s talking about nasty food, then Run-DMC talking about their Adidas, then NWA’s talking about their guns, and then you get Eminem talking about his drugs…That last little bit is a broad characterization and my theory is all speculation, but it’s the best i could do on a late intoxicated night.
Coughsubterranianhomesickbluescough
The “rapping” on the Burns & Allen show and modern rap music, while similar, have two separate origins. Modern Rap evolved from the reggae movement. There was (and is) a form of Reggae called ‘Dub’ in which a DJ speaks over the music, usually about what a great DJ he is. This evolved over time into rap as reggae musicians moved into urban U.S. areas.
(All of this comes from a history of rock music of the 70s and 80s class I took a couple of years ago from the Indiana University School of Music).
To quote Bob Rivers, “Rap’s not even music!”. 
Seriously now, the first rap song to hit the charts (but not the very first rap song to be recorded) was Rapper’s Delight, by the Sugar Hill Gang.
I vote for “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, Bob Dylan, 1964.
Not EXACTLY a rap. It’s more like a variation of the scat performed by some jazz singers. And I believe that scat evolved (uh, could it be devolved?) into rap too.
As others have mentioned, the spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics appear in many other music styles, and go back probably as far as singing does.
I think rap as we know it, with a rapper singing to the accompaniment of a DJ spinning records, began in Jamaica in the sixties. I think I read this in the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, 1980 edition. I’ll look it up tonight if I remember.
The rap tradition in reggae goes back even further than dub. It grew out of a practice called “toasting” where DJs would talk over the songs they played. Usually they would call out the names of people they knew who were on the dance floor (which, I guess, would be the precursor to the modern rapper’s “shout out”). Then that evolved into short rastafarian sermons and stream-of-conciousness rants. U-Roy was a famous toaster (his real name was Hugh Roy) who has been called the Father of Modern Rap (at least, that’s what they called him on the record I bought…) and he was around back in the rock steady days (1966-67). So while the tradition of rhyming speech over music can be fairly traced back to scat singing and jazz (and probably even earlier), the accepted modern rap instrumentation (ha!) of one or two MC’s and a DJ is directly decended from Jamacian house parties of the '60’s.
Now scratching, on the other hand–I have no idea where that came from. Probably some DJ did it accidentally and thought “hey–that sounds pretty good!”
There’s an urban legend that it came from Blondie’s 80’s hit “Rapture,” in which Debbie Harry sort of chants the end of the song. I guess white folks invented rap as well as jazz…
The first Jamaican DJ, or “selector” to incorporate talk over popular tunes at an event was Count Machuki, back on yond in the early sixties. He is the acknowledged father of toasting.
The Jamaican tradition of Toasting, Dub, and Dancehall all arose as a result of sound equipment being readily available to people within African culture who were making the music, as opposed to people of the dominant culture making the decisions on what to record and sell. In Jamaica, it was Osbourne Ruddock, aka King Tubby, who mastered sound engineering and had the best sound system in Kingston, allowing Jamaicans to create their own sound. At that time, it was Dub, which was all about sampling rhythms of popular tunes and improvising on that. Toasting is the DJ’s further improvisation upon that vocally, not with the intent of recording, but of entertaining a crowd at a dance. Of course, it was so damn good, it had to be recorded!
The Jamaican developments gained more popularity in England, in the 70’s, while a similar tradition was gaining ground in New York clubs. I haven’t seen a particular linking of the NY DJ’s to Jamaican toasters, but I do know of one recording, on the ROIR Label,“Brother D (Bronx) and The Silver Fox(Jamaica)”, in the early 80’s.
At any rate, a crucial factor in the development of rap is the technology of recording, and access to soundboards which facilitated the specific sampling methods of rap, becoming easily available directly to those who wanted to create with it.
I have heard with my own two ears many blues musicians who were beautifully adept with “The Dozens” and “Signifying Monkey”, both of which can be termed as traditional antecedents to Rap. They are as powerful and clever a poetic spectacle as the best Rap, but were rarely recorded precisely because of their shocking power. The sad fact is, the artists chose not to reveal them at that time, or the people recording chose not to release them, in accordance to social mores.
To the OP, vocal rhythmic play is probably as anciently resonant as the first word uttered banging out into the lonely void of the cosmos; but trying to equate George and Gracie with the origins of modern African American music is a bit beyond the politeness of a Goodnight cigar.
The very first time I’ve heard a scratch was in a Skatalites song, forgot the name but it was from the very end of the sixties. I even tought that the record was broken at the time.
people are getting warmer, but i would like to pull it all together.
in the mid-1970s, in the South Bronx, people would gather in the parks at night for parties and dancing. the centerpiece of these affairs were the DJs, who illegally hooked their equipment up to the streetlights and were responsible for getting crowds excited. they noticed that the crowd would go crazy when the sounds would go into the “break,” often when the drums were isolated on record and had the freedom to get a little crazy.
they invented the mixer, technology that could allow them to take 2 copies of the same record and create the never-ending break. you’d play the break on one record, cue up the other one at the beginning of the break, and meld them into one continuous, crowd-warming mix.
but the breaks were almost entirely instrumental. DJ Kool Herc, one of those pioneering DJs, was from the West Indies and was probably familiar with Jamaican “toasting,” as others have mentioned. a “toast” was really just a rhyming couplet that a hype man might use to excite the crowd as the DJ was spinning.
picture this: Kool Herc working furiously on the wheels of steel and his partner grabs the mic and says something like, “Kool Herc’s got the beats that go on and on, the party don’t stop until the break of dawn.” but the revolutionary thing that separates hip-hop from all the earlier examples mentioned happened when those friends of the DJ decided to extend those simple couplets and keep the rhyme going. this is where rap truly started–has anybody really heard a Jamaican sound from the 60s where somebody is rapping for extended periods of time?
hip-hop is related to all the things mentioned but really something quite different. it came from the streets, from the poorest neighborhoods. it was a response to over-produced Black music of the 1970’s: you didn’t need a band, just 2 records and a couple of microphones.
eventually, the rappers became more popular with the crowd and it was the DJ who got pushed into the background (so much so that they are almost forgotten).
scratching was invented by a DJ named Grandwizard Theodore in the late 1970s. legend has it his mother interrupted his bedroom mixing and he liked the results. when you are mixing 2 records together, you need to cue up the “one,” or the bass kick that starts a bar of music. timing has to be perfect, so a DJ moves that bass kick in time with the music before letting the record go and producing a seamless blend. but people liking the sound of that bass kick in time with the music and scratching became popular.
this is all really just a cursory glance. if you need detail, i’m long-winded enough to go on. besides, how many times does a knowledge of hip-hop have the opportunity to shine?
My nomination would be for Rhinocratic Oaths by Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band circa 1968.
Further back you might be able to cite Ringo by Lorne Green circa 1965.
Funny, I was just at the Brooklyn Museum yesterday, enjoying the Hip-Hop Nation exhibit, which showcased the history of rap and hip-hop. Here is a link: http://www.brooklynart.org/hiphop/Default.htm
I didn’t know that anybody thought Rapture by Blondie was thd first rap song. I thought that it was generally understood that it was the first rap to be heard/popular in the non-urban non-black population. I’m sure that was true for me. I grew up in the NY area, so I probably had heard some rap by the time Rapture came out, but it was sure the first rap song that I knew. From there, I moved on to an appreciation of the Sugar Hill Gang, etc.
One of my favorite parts of the exhibit was that they had the original handwritten by Debbie Harry lyrics to Rapture. So, now I finally know what the mysterious first lines of the rap are. You know–the part between “Fab 5 Freddy…” and “…and they don’t stop.” Incidentally, that song got us interested in rap partially because we wanted to know who Fab 5 Freddy was!
p.s. trying to figure out when the ultimate beginning of rap was is as impossible was trying to figure out when the ultimate beginning of rock’n’roll is. Rap as we know it emerged in the late 1970s. See hapaXL’s explanation.
I just finished listening to another tape and this time they got their announcer rapping about Maxwel House coffee. I am in no means saying Burns and Allen invented this but I am thinking that it was around a long time back.
This isn’t just rhyme talking this is words that if it had an urban beat (and it is of course comic) it would pass today.