Let Us Now Praise The Sugarhill Gang!

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B96 just played rappers delight, and took me by surprise. I hadn't heard this in a while, forgotten how infectious the loop is and how dizzying the onnananonannaon lines are. I ceased working, a big grin spread over my face, and I was incapacitated with rapture for the duration. What is it about those boys? I think that the key is how the vocal line bounces around the bar rather than following a straight melodic figure.

― Sterling Clover, Monday, 29 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Part of my love for that song comes from the completely ridiculous lyrics. Could you imagine a modern day rapper singing "Guess what, America? We love you!". And that whole bit about metting Lois Lane, and the part about eating dinner at a friends....it's all just so innocent seeming. A far cry from the mysoginy & violence that fills rap songs today (not that these are neccesarily bad things...)

― daniel, Monday, 29 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

They sound so enthusiastic and just happy to be there. But dontcha think that really it's all about the Chic bassline (and by extension the finding and using of the Chic bassline) ?

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 29 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

hmmm... they didn't really exist as an act, and were just put together to cash in on hip hop by Sylvia Robinson. other people at the time were pretty pissed off, esp the MC who most of the lyrics were stolen from (Grandmaster Casanova Fly, which is why they keep going on about being the 'casanova fly' etc)

amusing anecdote: Sylvia Robinson hadn't paid Bernard Edwards and Nile Rogers for some session work years earlier (and had sent people round to beat them up when they complained), so when the track came out they took Sugarhill to court...

having said that it's still a great record.

― m jemmeson, Tuesday, 30 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Far better even than "Rapper's Delight" is "8th Wonder" - best use of nonsense syllables since the Marcel's "Blue Moon." The complaint at the time was that the Sugarhill Gang were lightweights and from Jersey so not part of the real South Bronx scene. But as a call-and- response hip-hop record, "8th Wonder" can hold its own with "Supperrappin'," "The Body Rock," and "That's the Joint."

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

haha, another rip off! 'Blue Moon' was a direct steal from The Collegians 'Zoom Zoom Zoom'...

― m jemmeson, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, I wouldn't say that the S. Gang was doing a direct rip, since (if I remember right) "8th Wonder" goes, "dang dig-a dang, d- dang-a-dang-diggy diggy" and "Blue Moon" goes "d-danga-dang dang, d- ding-a-dong ding." Approximately.

― Frank Kogan, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i meant that The Marcel's 'Blue Moon' was a direct rip-off of The Collegian's 'Zoom Zoom Zoom', which came out earlier. haven't heard the Sugarhill track for a long time, but that sort of quoting of other tracks (both vocally and with samples) is an important part of hip hop.

― m jemmeson, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

thirteen years pass...

http://www.stereogum.com/1717972/r-i-p-sugarhill-gangs-big-bank-hank/obit/

― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, 12 November 2014 00:10 (eleven years ago)

:(
dude was young!

RIP

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 12 November 2014 00:18 (eleven years ago)

ten months pass...

"Rapper's Delight was released on September 16, 1979

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 23:55 (ten years ago)

So was Flo Rida

― Josefa, Thursday, 17 September 2015 00:01 (ten years ago)

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