Famously, the first hip-hop single wasn't actually the first. Rapper's Delight, the Sugarhill Gang's 15 minutes of fame, was beaten to shops by King Tim III (Personality Jock), the B-side of a Fatback Band 12-inch. But it was Rapper's Delight – a debut both for hip-hop's first imprint and its eponymous group – that sent this new music around the world, a global audience forever associating this new music with that odd opening line: "I said a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie ...".
For all hip-hop's rulebook-destroying approach to the records it was made from, the story of the Sugar Hill label, and of Rapper's Delight in particular, is striking for its echoes of earlier eras. Hip-hop might have had a strident sense of authenticity but the genre's first hitmakers were a manufactured band – put together by former soul/disco singer Sylvia Robinson. She'd set up an independent label and was looking for the next big sound to make some money from. The backing track, ostensibly Chic's Good Times, was replayed by an in-house band, and Robinson's new-school Motown had recording, mixing, pressing and promo departments all under one roof. Infamously, Big Bank Hank rapped lyrics written by Cold Crush Brothers' MC Grandmaster Caz, his borrowing so blatant he even spells out Caz's name in the song. New sound, same old rules.
