Rocktrospectiva: The Seminal "The Sugarhill Gang" Turns 45

Released on 7 February 1980, "The Sugarhill Gang" album was the self-titled debut album by influential rap group the Sugarhill Gang. It is considered to be the first hip hop studio album, leading to more studio albums by other rappers. The album spawned four singles "Rapper's Delight", "Rapper's Reprise", "Hot Hot Summer Day", & "Here I Am". 

Considered them to be the first rap act to have a huge international hit with the 1979's "Rapper's Delight", although the Sugarhill Gang didn't invent hip-hop,  the succes of that single led to millions of listeners' first exposure to hip-hop -- before that, very few people outside of New York even knew what hip-hop was.  

The Sugarhill Gang were also among the first rap acts to record a full-length LP; when this self-titled debut album came out in 1980, the vast majority of old-school MCs were only providing 12" singles. So The Sugarhill Gang is a historically important album. While "Rapper's Delight" and "Rapper's Reprise" which features the Sequence, hip-hop's first all-female group are excellent, most of the material is merely decent and sometimes a little bit boring.  

 

The funny thing is that half of the songs aren't even rap, for instance "Bad News Don't Bother Me" and "Here I Am," both of which find the Sugarhill Gang singing instead of rapping, are romantic R&B slow jams -- and "Sugarhill Groove" is a sleek disco-funk number. So this LP can hardly be called the work of hip-hop purists; in 1980, Sugarhill Records leader Sylvia Robinson considered herself a veteran R&B singer, evidently felt that putting out an all-rap album would be risky. But, while The Sugarhill Gang isn't a masterpiece, it's still an album that hip-hop historians will find interesting. 

The album was released in 1980 for Sugarhill Records and was produced by Sylvia Robinson. The single "Rapper's Delight" was the first rap single to become a top-40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching number 36 on the U.S. pop chart and number 4 on the R&B chart. Although "Rapper's Delight" was the only charting single, the album also included the minor hit, "Rapper's Reprise". Aside from the two singles and "Sugarhill Groove", the remainder of the LP consists of several down-tempo soul tracks and a disco instrumental, ironically Sylvia Robinson did not believe an album consisting entirely of hip hop music would be commercially viable in 1980, how wrong she was back then.

 

The Sugarhill Gang Track List:

 

1. Here I Am

2. Rapper's Delight

3. Bad News (Don't Bother Me)

4. Sugarhill Groove

5. Passion Play

6. Rapper's Delight