Why Is the Discourse Around This Important Hip-Hop Song So Backwards?
What are the great pleasures of our existence? A beautiful sunset on a calm day. A personal 5k record. A first class upgrade. A championship victory by your favorite sports team. A perfect banana — no black specks, no green lines. When you realize the book you’re reading is going to be good. Inexpensive printer ink. When your kid says something smart. When your hair falls the right way.
To these I would add: “Rapper’s Delight.”
C’mon, who doesn’t love this song? It’s pure joy in a bottle. If aliens arrived and heard it, they would immediately understand the concept of fun.
“Rapper’s Delight” completely changed music history, inspired generations of entertainers, and remains a satellite radio staple. For 45 years it’s been the perfect introduction to hip-hop for any person, of any age.
And yet, it’s been all but written out of history, its creators subjected to derision and scorn. And that’s not because of any impropriety, sexual or otherwise. It’s because hip-hop’s curmudgeonly gatekeepers and cantankerous critics have blackballed it for no good reason.
It all began one morning in 1979, when music impresario Sylvia Robinson assigned her son Joey a task: Find her a rapper.
It wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Though the Robinsons ran an Englewood, New Jersey-based record label, it was known for luscious, studio R&B — with full-band arrangements. They didn’t know the first thing about hip-hop, which then existed only as live music. Only one rap single had ever been recorded up to that point.
Their operation was led by Sylvia Robinson, a Hollywood-beautiful, wildly stylish 44-year-old former platinum recording artist.