Old School Cool is an occasional feature that, for those of a certain age, retraces the journeys of a musical lifetime in a way that keeps the memories flooding back. This time it’s the 1979 debut single from American hip-hop trio The Sugar Hill Gang, ‘Rapper’s Delight’, that despite being credited for introducing hip hop to a wider audience was not without controversy in that a dispute over the use of a sample of 'Good Times' by Chic was only resolved when both Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards were added to the song’s writing credits.
Not only that, and staying with ‘samples’ before the ‘Good Times’ background begins, the intro to the recording is a snippet of ‘Here Comes That Sound Again’ by the British group Love De-Luxe’.
In 2010 ‘Rapper's Delight’ was ranked at number 251 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the ‘500 Greatest Songs Of All Time’ and number 2 on the VH1 ‘100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs’. It is also included on the NPR list of the 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century.
The track reached the top forty in the USA, the top three in the UK and topped the chart in Canada. Amongst its many accolades, the track was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2014.
I am indebted to Ian Phillips for coming up with the idea for this feature on ‘Rapper’s Delight’. Ian writes some great music related Twitter posts and is well worth a follow.