Sugar Hill Records releases 'Rapper's Delight'
Sylvia Robinson's Englewood, NJ label issues 'Rapper's Delight' by the Sugarhill Gang — Wonder Mike, Big Bank Hank, and Master Gee, none of them established Bronx scene fixtures. Built over a re-recorded interpolation of Chic's 'Good Times', the 12-inch becomes the first rap record to reach the U.S. Top 40 and the first global rap hit.
Why it matters
Before September 1979, rap is a live, park-and-club tradition the recording industry treated as unrecordable — 15-minute extended breaks aren't a single. Robinson's bet that you could compress the form onto vinyl and sell it cracked the commercial frame open. Within a year, Kurtis Blow becomes the first rapper signed to a major label (Mercury) and the first to earn a gold single ('The Breaks').
Branches
Citations 3
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Nearby in time
- 1979Sylvia and Joe Robinson found Sugar Hill Records
- 1979Wiley is born
- 1979Fatback Band releases 'King Tim III (Personality Jock)' — the first commercial rap recording
- 1979Sugarhill Gang releases 'Rapper's Delight' — first rap single to crack the Top 40
- 1979"Rapper's Delight" is released
- 1980Sugarhill Gang is released