10 Songs That Changed Music Forever
5. The Sugarhill Gang - Rapper’s Delight (1979)
Like the Sex Pistols, The Sugarhill Gang were a manufactured band put together by a svengali (in this case, Sylvia Robinson) to capitalise on an existing sound, the club-based rap and hip hop movement - they’re even named after her record company.
Unlike the Pistols, they never grew past this, and they don’t have the reputation of some of their peers for good reason.
‘Rapper’s Delight’, their only hit, is something of a curate’s egg. Based around a bassline half-inched from Chic’s ‘Good Times’, a big summer hit that year, the sprawling track was fifteen minutes long with many lyrics lifted wholesale from another rapper who wasn’t involved in the project.
Nonetheless, the impact that ‘Rapper’s Delight’ had as a single in 1979 dwarfs that of their more credible contemporaries. It was the first rap song to break the top forty in the US, and it’s rarely been off the radio ever since - and despite its bizarre, inauthentic genesis, the track helped popularise rap music and hip hop and bring it to significant mainstream attention.