By Associated Press
LOS ANGELES: Remember the primary rap tune you heard? Some of your favourite rappers and DJs actually do.
While hip-hop celebrates 50 years of life, The Associated Press requested a few of the style’s hottest artists to recall their first reminiscence of listening to rap and the way the second resonated with them.
In interviews with greater than two dozen hip-hop legends, Queen Latifah Chuck D, Method Man, E-40 and eight others cited The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” as the primary rap tune they heard. But not all had been hooked on the brand new musical fashion by that monitor, and their solutions reveal the sense of discovery that marked rap’s early years.
Hip-hop’s roots are traced to 1973 within the Bronx and it took a couple of years earlier than rap data emerged — “Rapper’s Delight” was a significant catalyst for introducing rap music to a much wider viewers.
Here are the tales of a dozen hip-hop stars who obtained hooked on the style across the time “Rapper’s Delight” dominated. In half two, one other group of legends and younger stars reminisce about connecting with rap by listening to songs by acts like Tupac Shakur, Grandmaster Flash, 2 Live Crew, or Run-D.M.C.
Chuck D
As a sophomore at Adelphi University, Chuck D was about to hit the stage to carry out over the melody of Chic’s “Good Times” at a celebration in October 1979.
At least, that’s what he thought.
When he stepped behind the microphone, Chuck D heard a unique model of the tune. It saved going and going for — quarter-hour straight.
“I get on the mic to rock the house. Then all of a sudden, I hear words behind me as I’m rockin’. I lipsync. The words keep going. (Expletive) are rockin’ for like 20 minutes,” mentioned Chuck D, a member of the rap group Public Enemy who created “ Fight the Power,” one among hip-hop’s most iconic and essential anthems.
“After it’s all over, cats are giving me high pounds like ‘You went on and on to the break of dawn dawg,’” he continued. “Back then, it’s about how long you can rap. I went and turned to the DJ and looked at the red label that said ‘Sugarhill Gang ‘Rapper’s Delight.’ I was like ’Oh, they finally did it.’ They were talking all summer long that rap records were going to happen.”
He was surprised: I used to be, like, ’It’s inconceivable. How may a rap be a report?′ I couldn’t see it. Nobody may see it. And then when it occurred, growth.”
Queen Latifah
For Queen Latifah, “Rapper’s Delight” was the primary rap tune she and a whole lot of others heard and memorized the place she grew up in Newark, New Jersey. But the most important report in her world as a child was Afrika Bambaattaa and the Soul Sonic Force’s 1982 tune “ Planet Rock. ”
While the Oscar-nominated actor might be seen chasing dangerous guys on CBS’ “The Equalizer,” many overlook her roots as a rapper, with hits like “U.N.I.T.Y. and “Just Another Day.”
“It changed the sound,” she mentioned. “It’s more of a synthesized, 808s, hi-hats. The whole sound of it was different. Some of hip-hop in the original days was live music. It was live bands playing break records. Like ‘Good Times’ was the beat to ‘Rapper’s Delight.’ Some of those records took actual disco records, played the music and rhymed to them.”
E-40
While heading to highschool as a seventh grader in 1979, E-40 heard a brand new rap tune on a neighborhood radio station that usually performed R&B and soul music in Northern California.
It was “Rapper’s Delight,” which interpolated Chic’s hit “Good Times.” That’s when he knew hip-hop was going to be part of his life eternally.
“I was like ‘Ohh, this is hard. I’m hooked,’” mentioned E-40, who recalled the second whereas driving to Franklin Middle School in Vallejo, California. He and fellow rapper B-Legit used to sport the identical sort of fedora hats and massive gold rope chains Run-D.M.C. carried out in.
“From then on, I cherished rap. In 1979, once I first heard The Sugarhill Gang, I needed to be a rapper. I might mess around with it. … We grew up on New York rap. All of us did. We needed to be hip-hop. We needed to breakdance. We did all of it.
“But that changed everything after we heard Sugarhill Gang. Next thing you know, you’re hearing Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Kurtis Blow and Roxannne, Roxanne.”
Lil Jon
“Rapper’s Delight” was most likely the primary hip-hop tune Lil Jon heard. But he grew to become a “super fan” of the style as a center schooler in Atlanta after seeing rap teams the Fat Boys and Whodini. It was his first time seeing skilled rappers onstage.
“I might have been a fan of rap before, but I had never been to a rap concert. I’ve never seen rappers in person,” he mentioned. “Maybe just in the magazines. That turned me into like. … a super fan of hip-hop.”
The first hip-hop report Lil-Jon purchased was Run D.M.C.’s “Sucker M.C.’s (Krush-Groove 1).”
“I remembered my homeboy that lived in the neighborhood. I had to go through some woods to his house with the album,” he mentioned. “We put the album on at his house. We were going crazy over listening to lyrics and beats.”
Roxanne Shante
Roxanne Shante’s first rap expertise didn’t are available in tune type. She was launched to hip-hop by the late comedian-poet Nipsey Russell.
“He had the ability to rhyme at any time,” mentioned Shante, a bunch for SiriusXM’s Rock the Bells Radio. At age 14, she grew to become one of many first feminine rappers to grow to be widespread after her tune “Roxanne’s Revenge” and gained extra notoriety as a member of the Juice Crew. She additionally took half in Roxanne Wars, which was a collection of hip-hop rivalries within the mid-Eighties.
Shante mentioned “Rapper’s Delight” was the report most dad and mom introduced into their dwelling because the “party song.” But in her thoughts, Russell had simply as a lot of an influence.
“That would be my first encounter with loving what would become hip-hop,” she continued. “This way of having a certain cadence, this way of being able to do these certain rhymes was just incredible to me. … He was able to freestyle all day, every day. And that’s who I am. That’s what I still do today.”
Too Short
It’s 1979. Too Short was round 13 years outdated. He usually listened to a wide range of funk songs starting from the Ohio Players’ “Love Rollercoaster” and Funkadelic’s “Knee Deep.” Then at some point at his father’s home, he heard “Rapper’s Delight” blaring by a stereo system.
“I was on my funk stuff, then this ‘Rapper’s Delight’ record came out and it was like 15 minutes long,” he recalled. “I’d be at my pop’s house just bumping the loud stereo.”
As “Rapper’s Delight” gained momentum in 1980, Too Short gravitated extra towards beatboxing. That led him to hit up the native report retailer the place he would purchase the most recent hip-hop album then blasted it on his radio for anybody to listen to in Oakland.
“I had to get a radio with two speakers. That was mandatory,” he mentioned. “I was the guy with the radio who was hitting play going ‘You ain’t never heard that before.’ … I had the whole room, the whole bus jumping.”
Doug E. Fresh
Hearing “Rapper’s Delight” for the primary time modified the trajectory of Doug E. Fresh’s life.
“I remember when my sister came home and told me about a guy named D.J. Hollywood, who we considered the first real M.C.,” he mentioned. “She came home and told me about a rap he had. And the rap went, ‘Ding, ding, ding, ding, dong, dong, dong the dang, the dang, dang, dang, the ding dong dong. To the hip hop. …’”
Fresh then added: “I turned around and said, ‘Teach me that, show me.’ And after that, it’s been me and hip-hop since that point.”
DJ Kid Capri
DJ Kid Capri, arguably one among hip-hop’s most well-known DJs within the ‘90s, grew up on soul music. His father was a soul singer. His grandfather played the trumpet. And his uncle, Bill Curtis, was the leader of the Fatback Band — which he says made the first hip-hop single “ King Tim III (Personality Jock) ” before “Rapper’s Delight” was launched a couple of months later in 1979.
Capri’s uncle gave him the chance to listen to a rap tune for the primary time.
“I was right there,” Capri mentioned concerning the Fatback Band, a funk and disco ensemble who grew to become recognized for his or her R&B hits together with “(Do the) Spanish Hustle,” “I Like Girls” and “I Found Lovin’.” But it was “King Tim III” that had a robust affect on him — particularly because it got here from household.
“The world thinks ‘Rapper’s Delight’ was the first rap record, but it was ‘Personality Jock,’” he mentioned. “My uncle, he’s my family. He’s the one that did it. So, I’ve always been around it. That’s what made me be so infectious in it, because I’ve seen every level to where I’m at right now. I took all those things important to me on stage right now. When you see me on stage, you can see all those things wrapped up in me.”
Method Man
Yes, “Rapper’s Delight” was the first-ever rap tune Method Man ever heard. But the primary hip-hop tune that basically resonated with him was Run-D.M.C.’s “ Sucker MCs (Krush-Groove 1 ).”
“I had never heard this record and I thought I was up on everything at the time,” Method Man mentioned of the 1983 tune, which proceeded Run-D.M.C.’s first single “It’s Like That” from their self-titled album. He mentioned “Sucker MCs” helped pave a approach to usher in a brand new faculty of hip-hop artists.
“We were on a sixth-grade class trip to Long Island, and everybody was singing it word-for-word,” the “Power Book II: Ghost” actor remembered. “They must have played that record 24 times on our class trip.”
Big Daddy Kane
Around age 12, Big Daddy Kane won’t have remembered all of his homework assignments, however he actually may recite each lyric to the late Jimmy Spicer’s 1980 tune “ Adventures of Super Rhymes,” one among hip-hop’s first songs recorded in a studio.
Kane heard “Rapper’s Delight” first, however Spicer’s storytelling on the 15-minute tune resonated with him essentially the most.
“When this song came out, just the way Jimmy Spicer was styling on them and telling the story about Dracula and a story about Aladdin, I thought it was real slick,” he mentioned.
DJ Jazzy Jeff
DJ Jazzy Jeff at all times had an affinity for music. But when the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” star heard “Rapper’s Delight” for the primary time, he felt just like the tune spoke to him like no different.
“I think that was the first time I felt like the music was mine,” he mentioned. “Before then, I loved the music, but the music was kind of my older brothers and sisters, and I just liked it because it was theirs. This was the one that somebody made just for me.”
Jermaine Dupri
Jermaine Dupri couldn’t have envisioned his profitable profession with out listening to “Rapper’s Delight” across the age of 10.
“I remember the lyrics of the song. I remember it like it was yesterday,” mentioned Dupri, a rap mogul who was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018. “I just started learning the song. I never knew it was going to take me on this journey.”
LOS ANGELES: Remember the primary rap tune you heard? Some of your favourite rappers and DJs actually do.
While hip-hop celebrates 50 years of life, The Associated Press requested a few of the style’s hottest artists to recall their first reminiscence of listening to rap and the way the second resonated with them.
In interviews with greater than two dozen hip-hop legends, Queen Latifah Chuck D, Method Man, E-40 and eight others cited The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” as the primary rap tune they heard. But not all had been hooked on the brand new musical fashion by that monitor, and their solutions reveal the sense of discovery that marked rap’s early years.googletag.cmd.push(perform() googletag.show(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); );
Hip-hop’s roots are traced to 1973 within the Bronx and it took a couple of years earlier than rap data emerged — “Rapper’s Delight” was a significant catalyst for introducing rap music to a much wider viewers.
Here are the tales of a dozen hip-hop stars who obtained hooked on the style across the time “Rapper’s Delight” dominated. In half two, one other group of legends and younger stars reminisce about connecting with rap by listening to songs by acts like Tupac Shakur, Grandmaster Flash, 2 Live Crew, or Run-D.M.C.
Chuck D
As a sophomore at Adelphi University, Chuck D was about to hit the stage to carry out over the melody of Chic’s “Good Times” at a celebration in October 1979.
At least, that’s what he thought.
When he stepped behind the microphone, Chuck D heard a unique model of the tune. It saved going and going for — quarter-hour straight.
“I get on the mic to rock the house. Then all of a sudden, I hear words behind me as I’m rockin’. I lipsync. The words keep going. (Expletive) are rockin’ for like 20 minutes,” mentioned Chuck D, a member of the rap group Public Enemy who created “ Fight the Power,” one among hip-hop’s most iconic and essential anthems.
“After it’s all over, cats are giving me high pounds like ‘You went on and on to the break of dawn dawg,’” he continued. “Back then, it’s about how long you can rap. I went and turned to the DJ and looked at the red label that said ‘Sugarhill Gang ‘Rapper’s Delight.’ I was like ’Oh, they finally did it.’ They were talking all summer long that rap records were going to happen.”
He was surprised: I used to be, like, ’It’s inconceivable. How may a rap be a report?′ I couldn’t see it. Nobody may see it. And then when it occurred, growth.”
Queen Latifah
For Queen Latifah, “Rapper’s Delight” was the primary rap tune she and a whole lot of others heard and memorized the place she grew up in Newark, New Jersey. But the most important report in her world as a child was Afrika Bambaattaa and the Soul Sonic Force’s 1982 tune “ Planet Rock. ”
While the Oscar-nominated actor might be seen chasing dangerous guys on CBS’ “The Equalizer,” many overlook her roots as a rapper, with hits like “U.N.I.T.Y. and “Just Another Day.”
“It changed the sound,” she mentioned. “It’s more of a synthesized, 808s, hi-hats. The whole sound of it was different. Some of hip-hop in the original days was live music. It was live bands playing break records. Like ‘Good Times’ was the beat to ‘Rapper’s Delight.’ Some of those records took actual disco records, played the music and rhymed to them.”
E-40
While heading to highschool as a seventh grader in 1979, E-40 heard a brand new rap tune on a neighborhood radio station that usually performed R&B and soul music in Northern California.
It was “Rapper’s Delight,” which interpolated Chic’s hit “Good Times.” That’s when he knew hip-hop was going to be part of his life eternally.
“I was like ‘Ohh, this is hard. I’m hooked,’” mentioned E-40, who recalled the second whereas driving to Franklin Middle School in Vallejo, California. He and fellow rapper B-Legit used to sport the identical sort of fedora hats and massive gold rope chains Run-D.M.C. carried out in.
“From then on, I cherished rap. In 1979, once I first heard The Sugarhill Gang, I needed to be a rapper. I might mess around with it. … We grew up on New York rap. All of us did. We needed to be hip-hop. We needed to breakdance. We did all of it.
“But that changed everything after we heard Sugarhill Gang. Next thing you know, you’re hearing Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Kurtis Blow and Roxannne, Roxanne.”
Lil Jon
“Rapper’s Delight” was most likely the primary hip-hop tune Lil Jon heard. But he grew to become a “super fan” of the style as a center schooler in Atlanta after seeing rap teams the Fat Boys and Whodini. It was his first time seeing skilled rappers onstage.
“I might have been a fan of rap before, but I had never been to a rap concert. I’ve never seen rappers in person,” he mentioned. “Maybe just in the magazines. That turned me into like. … a super fan of hip-hop.”
The first hip-hop report Lil-Jon purchased was Run D.M.C.’s “Sucker M.C.’s (Krush-Groove 1).”
“I remembered my homeboy that lived in the neighborhood. I had to go through some woods to his house with the album,” he mentioned. “We put the album on at his house. We were going crazy over listening to lyrics and beats.”
Roxanne Shante
Roxanne Shante’s first rap expertise didn’t are available in tune type. She was launched to hip-hop by the late comedian-poet Nipsey Russell.
“He had the ability to rhyme at any time,” mentioned Shante, a bunch for SiriusXM’s Rock the Bells Radio. At age 14, she grew to become one of many first feminine rappers to grow to be widespread after her tune “Roxanne’s Revenge” and gained extra notoriety as a member of the Juice Crew. She additionally took half in Roxanne Wars, which was a collection of hip-hop rivalries within the mid-Eighties.
Shante mentioned “Rapper’s Delight” was the report most dad and mom introduced into their dwelling because the “party song.” But in her thoughts, Russell had simply as a lot of an influence.
“That would be my first encounter with loving what would become hip-hop,” she continued. “This way of having a certain cadence, this way of being able to do these certain rhymes was just incredible to me. … He was able to freestyle all day, every day. And that’s who I am. That’s what I still do today.”
Too Short
It’s 1979. Too Short was round 13 years outdated. He usually listened to a wide range of funk songs starting from the Ohio Players’ “Love Rollercoaster” and Funkadelic’s “Knee Deep.” Then at some point at his father’s home, he heard “Rapper’s Delight” blaring by a stereo system.
“I was on my funk stuff, then this ‘Rapper’s Delight’ record came out and it was like 15 minutes long,” he recalled. “I’d be at my pop’s house just bumping the loud stereo.”
As “Rapper’s Delight” gained momentum in 1980, Too Short gravitated extra towards beatboxing. That led him to hit up the native report retailer the place he would purchase the most recent hip-hop album then blasted it on his radio for anybody to listen to in Oakland.
“I had to get a radio with two speakers. That was mandatory,” he mentioned. “I was the guy with the radio who was hitting play going ‘You ain’t never heard that before.’ … I had the whole room, the whole bus jumping.”
Doug E. Fresh
Hearing “Rapper’s Delight” for the primary time modified the trajectory of Doug E. Fresh’s life.
“I remember when my sister came home and told me about a guy named D.J. Hollywood, who we considered the first real M.C.,” he mentioned. “She came home and told me about a rap he had. And the rap went, ‘Ding, ding, ding, ding, dong, dong, dong the dang, the dang, dang, dang, the ding dong dong. To the hip hop. …’”
Fresh then added: “I turned around and said, ‘Teach me that, show me.’ And after that, it’s been me and hip-hop since that point.”
DJ Kid Capri
DJ Kid Capri, arguably one among hip-hop’s most well-known DJs within the ‘90s, grew up on soul music. His father was a soul singer. His grandfather played the trumpet. And his uncle, Bill Curtis, was the leader of the Fatback Band — which he says made the first hip-hop single “ King Tim III (Personality Jock) ” before “Rapper’s Delight” was launched a couple of months later in 1979.
Capri’s uncle gave him the chance to listen to a rap tune for the primary time.
“I was right there,” Capri mentioned concerning the Fatback Band, a funk and disco ensemble who grew to become recognized for his or her R&B hits together with “(Do the) Spanish Hustle,” “I Like Girls” and “I Found Lovin’.” But it was “King Tim III” that had a robust affect on him — particularly because it got here from household.
“The world thinks ‘Rapper’s Delight’ was the first rap record, but it was ‘Personality Jock,’” he mentioned. “My uncle, he’s my family. He’s the one that did it. So, I’ve always been around it. That’s what made me be so infectious in it, because I’ve seen every level to where I’m at right now. I took all those things important to me on stage right now. When you see me on stage, you can see all those things wrapped up in me.”
Method Man
Yes, “Rapper’s Delight” was the first-ever rap tune Method Man ever heard. But the primary hip-hop tune that basically resonated with him was Run-D.M.C.’s “ Sucker MCs (Krush-Groove 1 ).”
“I had never heard this record and I thought I was up on everything at the time,” Method Man mentioned of the 1983 tune, which proceeded Run-D.M.C.’s first single “It’s Like That” from their self-titled album. He mentioned “Sucker MCs” helped pave a approach to usher in a brand new faculty of hip-hop artists.
“We were on a sixth-grade class trip to Long Island, and everybody was singing it word-for-word,” the “Power Book II: Ghost” actor remembered. “They must have played that record 24 times on our class trip.”
Big Daddy Kane
Around age 12, Big Daddy Kane won’t have remembered all of his homework assignments, however he actually may recite each lyric to the late Jimmy Spicer’s 1980 tune “ Adventures of Super Rhymes,” one among hip-hop’s first songs recorded in a studio.
Kane heard “Rapper’s Delight” first, however Spicer’s storytelling on the 15-minute tune resonated with him essentially the most.
“When this song came out, just the way Jimmy Spicer was styling on them and telling the story about Dracula and a story about Aladdin, I thought it was real slick,” he mentioned.
DJ Jazzy Jeff
DJ Jazzy Jeff at all times had an affinity for music. But when the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” star heard “Rapper’s Delight” for the primary time, he felt just like the tune spoke to him like no different.
“I think that was the first time I felt like the music was mine,” he mentioned. “Before then, I loved the music, but the music was kind of my older brothers and sisters, and I just liked it because it was theirs. This was the one that somebody made just for me.”
Jermaine Dupri
Jermaine Dupri couldn’t have envisioned his profitable profession with out listening to “Rapper’s Delight” across the age of 10.
“I remember the lyrics of the song. I remember it like it was yesterday,” mentioned Dupri, a rap mogul who was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018. “I just started learning the song. I never knew it was going to take me on this journey.”
