(Yeah, yeah. Cue the “I don’t know, but I’d like to shoot him” comments.)
I was always under the impression that The Sugar Hill Gang started rap music with the song “Rapper’s Delight.”
But tonight on VH-1’s “Where Are They Now” regarding the 1980s, they said, “The Sugar Hill Gang didn’t invent rap, but they were the first to take it to the big-time” or words to that effect. Then they didn’t say who did invent it.
Little known fact… It was Hitler. Lucky for the Allied that recording techonology wasn’t then what it is now. I shudder to think what would have happened if Bose had been in business then…
The song “RAPTURE” by Blondie has been reported to be the first rap song. But I also heard “Run DMC” state that rap music was created in 1974, but didn’t say by who. I’m quite certain that there are many who would claim to have invented rap…and they all should be shot!
Several different bands/artists are called “the first rappers,” most commonly Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.
In reality, Grandmaster Flash didn’t invent" rap any more than Chuck Berry invented rock and roll, or W.C. Handy invented the blues.
Rap, rock and the blues were musical forms that evolved over the course of many years, within the black community. Though rap didn’t become a mainstream musical form until the late 70s/early 80s, variations on rap had been around for ages. I suspect that rap has its roots in “talking blues,” which black singers were doing more than a century ago.
I think rap was more or less invented at block parties. Hence the “job titles” in rap and hip-hop acts: M.C. for Master of Ceremonies, and D.J. for Disc Jockey. Lots of folks would hold a block party, and the DJ would spin the records which were most popular in the hood at the time. Since we’re talking about early ‘70s, I think, this would probably be soul. LOTS of James Brown, in any case. Sugar Hill Gang used “Good Times” by Chic as their background for "Rappers’ Delight". “Good Times” was a popular hit (R&B, or early funk, I guess you’d call it) some months earlier.
After a while, the MC, often the person hosting the party, would start chatting about stuff - greeting and complimenting party attendants he liked, and cutting on the ones he didn’t like. This kind of thing has a long pedigree in some musical styles: giving props to your posse, the people you respect, who respect you, while badmouthing whoever it is you don’t like. Meanwhile, the DJ might be getting bored spinning the “Funky Drums” 45 for the umpteenth time, and start scratching with it. This allowed otherwise musically untrained people to put their own stamp on music. I mean, a lot of these are “rent parties”, parties with a low cover price that some tenant would throw to help get by. Under those circumstances, you want to entertain your friends as much as possible (and make all the competing rent parties look bad), but you don’t exactly have the resources to go out and take voice lessons or buy a baby grand.
Anyway, I don’t have any cites for that; that’s just what I’ve heard from fans of old school rap.
pkbites said
I don’t know the right answer, but I know that ain’t right.
In Debbie Harry’s rap on the song itself, it mentions an earlier rapper – Fab Five Freddy.
“Rapture” was probably the first rap hit, although I don’t know the chronology between that and “Rapper’s Delight.”
Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” came a few years later, IIRC.
from a hip hop timeline in cmj magazine:
1967: Clive Campbell- alias Kool DJ Herc - relocates to the Bronx from Kingston, Jamaica.
1971: Harlem favorite DJ Hollywood weds rhymes (like “hip-hop, you don’t stop”) with musical passages
1973: Herc plays his first gig, a birthday party. Tracks like James Brown’s “Give It Up Or Turn It Loose” are among the highlights.
1974: Barbados emigrant Joseph Saddler begins spinning at house parties. Within two years, he’ll rise to Bronx prominence as Grandmaster Flash.
1975: DJs with mobile set-ups, patterned after Jamaica’s roving sound systems, gain increasing popularity. KoolDJ Herc, who has begun isolating rhythmic points within songs (“breaks”) and stringing them together, dominates the scene.
1976: Zulu Nation founder Afrika Bambaataa plays his first official party. Previously a gang member, Bambaataa recognizes hip-hop’s potential as a force for social change.
1977: While practicing on the decks, Grandwizard Theodore is interrupted by his mom. Distracted, he accidentally jiggles a cued-up record back and forth. Voila- scratching!
1979: “Rapper’s Delight” by Sugarhill Gang, the first rap track recognized by the mainstream, is released. The record peaks at #4 on the R&B charts and pierces the lowest reaches of the pop Top 40.
i uess that doesn’t answer the origins of rapping, but it’s the best i could do.
“Rap” has been around since the dawn of time probably. It just wasn’t called that until Blacks started recording it.
To me, it just means “talking out the words with some musical background.” Blacks caught on to this method (which had previously been the domain of "whiteys–typically Country & Western singers–who couldn’t carry a tune, a problem that few Blacks have) rather late in the game.
The list of whiteys doing this is rather long. Some notables, though: Johnny Cash’s whole career, CW McCalls “Convoy” in '75 or so, Lorne Greene’s “Ringo” from ‘64, Tex Williams’ “Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that Cigarette” from even further back.
But to answer the OP:
“Rapper’s Delight” was the first hit song that popularly became known as “rap.” It peaked relatively low on the HOT 100–not even Top 20, IIRC.
“Rapture” was the first rap song that hit #1 on the Billboard HOT 100.
I have no cites for this, but I thought Spoonie G’s album predated Sugar Hill- pretty sure both came out in '79. But Sugar Hill’s album had the advantage of actually being listenable.
DJ Kool Herc is generally acknowledged in hiphop circles as being the creator of rap music, in the early 70s.
I would barely consider Blondie’s “Rapture” as a rap song.
The spoken Mars/guitars/bars/cars part does qualify as a rap (w/ rhyme, meter, etc.). But the majority of the song is clearly Disco, even the bass line and sax that plays along with the rap lyrics.
And bursting bubbles further: Disco is not dead, it just sounds different. Any “dance mix” of a pop song is basically “Disco-ized”.
Had to have been Satan or one of his lackeys in the music business. Geeze I hate that gawd awful stuff.
Important cultural moment: Kool Herc comes to the United States from Jamaica.
Rap has been around in the West Indies since the '50s, only there they call it “toasting.” And it originated the exact same way it developed in the United States: DJs chanting rhymes over a musical rhythm track. In Jamaica, the music was early dancehall reggae, back then called “rocksteady.” Toasting migrated to the United Kingdom along with dancehall music in the mid- to late '70s; listen to records by the English Beat and other early ska bands to hear another branch of the development of “rap.”
Has anyone hear heard Gil Scott-Heron’s song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised?” I think that fits all the criteria of a rap song (besides perhaps the “scratching”), and the album was originally released in 1974.
Gil Scott’s “Small Talk at 125th and L” was released in '71 and has “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” (as well as the classic “Whitey’s On The Moon”). Most of it is spoken word with minimal drum beats. I’m not sure when the Last Poets released their first album but they have a very similar style. I (personally) don’t consider them rap but more of a drums/poetry thing. I don’t know why I make that distinction though.
I believe ska is actually the progenitor rock steady and reggae. It was the first attempt by Jamaicans to emulate the music that could be (barely) picked up by a powerful New Orleans R&B station. I think it was Rolling Stone that speculated that the curious hop-hop of ska and its offspring was a result of wave distortion over the long distances the radio signal traveled. Sorry I don’t have time to confirm this.
Mojo: It’s the right distinction to make. The work of Gil Scott-Heron and the Last Poets evolved out of beat poetry. Rap’s origins are distinctly different.
Sofa King: Nope, you’re thinking of rocksteady itself. Ska originated in the United Kingdom when white rock/skiffle and black dancehall musicians teamed up. It was originally called “two-tone” music; I’m not sure where the term “ska” came from, but it eventually supplanted “two-tone.”
Essentially, everyone is right here. Mainly because how do you define the start of something which is so obviously influenced by other things? Rap’s “origina” could go to Jamaica an “Toasting,” and it could also come from “scat” techniques used in jazz in the early part of the last century (not mentioned yet).
I mean, where do you point to the “origins” of rock music? Some say Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock,” but others will point to earlier and more obscure things which, frankly at the time were considered to simply be “black music” (as it was termed then) or “blues” or even some of the more rockin’ country stuff.
Ultimately, I think (and this is totlly an opinion) that when you talk of the origins of something, you can take into account the things which influenced epiphanies, but you really do have to look at the epiphany.
The time-line of “before” and “after” was drawn in 1954 with “Rock Around The Clock” as far as rock music goes, even though I could bring up predecessors which were not as popular. There was punk music before The Sex Pistols, but Never Mind The Bullocks was the best “before/after” moment you can name for that movement. And for rap, “Rapper’s Delight” is that moment.
As such, I feel that pointing to that moment is not erroneous nor a disservice to those before it.
Yer pal,
Satan
I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
One month, one week, three days, 14 hours, 7 minutes and 2 seconds.
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Fabulous.
The English Ska movement (The Beat, Madness etc) was really a revival movement, drawing its inspiration from such luminaries as “Prince” Buster.
As to the OP, it depends where you draw the line. If you listen to Robert Johnson, many of the spoken passages sound like rap. “Rapture” obviously doesn’t cut it, since it namechecks a whole bunch of important rap artists (Grandmaster for example) who were around at the time even if not charting.
The MC idea has a long history in Black Music. Seeing James Brown or others before him would always involve a rap-like audience build up over a vamp/ groove.
The important contributions of West Indian music run beyond “toasting”. In particular the dominance of sound systems (starting as mobile studios) rather than bands as such led to the importance of producers and mixers as artists rather than mere techs which were so crucial to disco and rap.
picmr
I think there is a definite distinction between rap and poetry recitation or other spoken-word passages in music. Such a distinction that I rather doubt rap is any sort of offshoot from those movements.
There is a sing-songy, to-the-beat aspect to rap (and early rap, which I actually liked infinitely better than today’s stuff) that is unique to the spoken-word traditions in other forms of American music.
I must admit that I don’t know Thing One about the Jamaican “toasting” to which some of you have referred. Makes sense that it played a strong role, from what y’all are saying.