Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force release 'Planet Rock'

Why it matters

April 1982. Tommy Boy Records put out "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force, produced by Arthur Baker and John Robie. The song is built from two interpolations of Kraftwerk records: the bassline and arpeggio from "Trans-Europe Express," and the percussion pattern from "Numbers." Everything else is a Roland TR-808 drum machine. What "Planet Rock" did, in roughly five minutes, is invent two entire sub-genres of music. Electro is here. Miami bass is here. You can hear the song's DNA in every freestyle record of the late 80s, every Egyptian Lover record, every 2 Live Crew record, every "Magic Stick," every "Bombs Over Baghdad." The 808 as the hip-hop drum-machine of record starts here. It is impossible to overstate. If you wanted one record to point at and say this is where rap stopped sampling funk and started making its own sound, that record is "Planet Rock," April 1982. The Library of Congress agrees; they put it on the National Recording Registry.