Ego Trip's Rap Singles 1979

will admit to not knowing most of these but they are all enjoyable

The one I've literally played the most is the Sequence, which is charming. Love this phase of the genre.

Me thinking--Oh, that's right Funky 4 plus 1 didn't put out "That's the Joint" till 1980 . That is my jam of theirs.

preliminarily, this is "funk you up." but there's a few i don't know, so will need to listen to the playlist (thank you for that, btw!)

found a stack of the Winley singles last summer & had a blast spinning them for a couple months. cant say that "Rhymin' and Rappin'" is anywhere near the best here, but its definitely got that loose block party charm that i associate with this era

“Rapper’s Delight” obviously.

Great poll! A lot of these have a goofy charm in their total amateurishness. The genre was still finding its feet and rap was only a New York thing at the time, so clearly the talent pool was limited. And the derivativeness was absolutely out of control. So many “hip hop ya don’t stop”s and “hip hop jive, so socialize”s and “tick tock y’all”s and shoutouts to Howard Cosell and the disco beat (Disco never died in New York, remember). “Spiderap” manages to steal both the opening line from “Rapper’s Delight” AND “Throw your hands up in the air and wave ‘em like you just don’t care”.

Best line: “Jack and Jill went up the hill to have a little fun. / But stupid Jill forgot the pill and now they have a son.”

The line from “Funk You Up” that always makes me laugh (although you kinda have to hear it) is

The only difference between you and me
And that is that I’m sexy

ha! never heard the "rapper's delight" cover before! it's good!

considering changing my mind to "superrappin." it's one of those songs i listened to so much in my late teens and early 20s that i've said, "enh i could go without ever hearing that again." but hearing it now for the first time in at least a decade, yep: total classic. imagine if that had taken off instead of sugarhill gang.

and "king tim" — just . . . !!!!!!!!

officially in the can't call it line rn.

I like most of these.

A missing 1979 track I like a lot is Willie Rap by Willie Wood & Willie Wood Crew

WHY HAVE I CONSISTENTLY AND SHAMEFULLY UNDERRATED THE FUNKY 4 + 1???

So with “Rapper’s Delight” being released September 16, 1979, all of these songs except “King Tim III” were released in the span of three-and-a-half months? That’s pretty wild.

good observation, mr snrub! on that front—

(Disco never died in New York, remember)

from all of the "history of early hiphop" stuff that i've taken in, the general vibe i get is that —especially in nyc— most folks just knew about hiphop from hearing it at block parties for years. so it makes sense that all it took was one hit and the floodgates opened.

for anybody interested in a lofi documentary that sheds light on a lot of important figures who allowed for the immediate onslaught in 1980, check out founding fathers narrated by chuck d. the general mood of the doc is, "these guys played a lot more disco and didn't always have mcs with them" but it's very cool to hear recollections.

did any of these had some airplay outside ny - in 1979 ?

“Rapper’s Delight” hit number three in the UK, amazingly enough. Over here it didn’t do quite as well, reaching #36.

Yeah that’s the one I remember hearing on the radio a lot. Kids in my suburban Florida neighborhood were memorizing the lyrics. Couldn’t swear I heard any of the others. I remember hearing “The Breaks” by Kurtis Blow but that was 1980.

"funk you up" is great, did not realize that's the OG ringadingdingdingdong!

this is a silly scene from a silly movie, but I can definitely relate to the joy of rapping along to rapper's delight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZLoKbPQHy0

“Rapper’s Delight” hit number three in the UK, amazingly enough. Over here it didn’t do quite as well, reaching #36.

this is them performing it for Dutch chart show TopPop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zer0tlE4zGQ

further proof of how deeply the song is embedded in the European public (sub)consciousness: in 2002, this Spanish song (note: "Rapper's Delight" had also been a number one hit in Spain) became of one of the biggest selling songs of the 2000s, reaching number one basically everywhere except for the US, where it peaked at #54:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMT698ArSfQ
Las Ketchup • The Ketchup Song (Asereje)

"The Ketchup Song" is about a young man named Diego who enters a nightclub. The DJ, a friend of Diego's, plays Diego's favorite song, "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang, and Diego dances and sings along to the song, imitating its chorus with Spanish gibberish. "Aserejé" is therefore a meaningless word, with the chorus "Aserejé, ja, de je, de jebe tu de jebere ..." being a somewhat incorrect imitation of the Rapper's Delight's "I said a hip-hop, the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop ..."

Lyrical comparison of "The Ketchup Song" and "Rapper's Delight":
The Ketchup Song:
Aserejé ja de jé de jebe
tu de jebere sebiunouva
majabi an de bugui
an de buididipí

Rapper's Delight:
I said a hip hop the hippie the hippie
to the hip hip hop, a you don't stop
the rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie
to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat

btw, in the slipstream of "Rapper's Delight", Joe Bataan's "Rap-O Clap-O" (also from '79) became a top-3 hit in the Netherlands in early 1980 (I can't find stats about its performance in other (European) countries):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntuSM_7WiKE

"Christmas Rappin'" also reached #30 in the UK in December/January in the UK, and was a minor hit in NL as well somewhat later, as simply "Rappin'":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFtA7IHZgzw

By coincidence "Ant Rap" also got to number 3, but that was a couple of years later:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4z__lCCBX0

It was released in December 1981 and peaked the next month, about a year after Blondie's "Rapture".

Apart from the fact that it's completely ridiculous I find it fascinating, because it almost represents a kind of parallel evolution of rap music - where the genre was inspired by the Royal Drummers of Burundi rather than Clyde Stubblefield.

sure, we could list all the rap-inspired songs that charted during the early 80s, but this thread is about the batch of ‘79, and my posts were relevant to that.

xp hehe yes, I was quite old when I realized the Ketchup Sugarhill connection, but perhaps it subliminally sold me on Asereje

"Rapper's Delight" will probably walk this, it's the big stone cold classic of the bunch, very strong opening lines and that undeniable Chic groove

the endless version is hilarious, I think 3 or 4 minutes will suffice for most purposes

voted "We Rap More Mellow"

yeah that is super good, funky

less mellow tbh

3 or 4 minutes [of RD] will suffice for most purposes

controversial opinion, it may work even better read in holden caulfield voice than to the beat

Have you ever went over a friend's house to eat
And the food just ain't no good?
I mean the macaroni's soggy, the peas are mushed
And the chicken tastes like wood
A so you try to play it off like you think you can
By saying that you're full
And then your friend says, "Mama, he's just being polite
He ain't finished, uh-uh, that's bull"
A so your heart starts pumping and you think of a lie
And you say that you already ate
And your friend says, "Man, there's plenty of food"
So you pile some more on your plate
But while the stinky food's steaming, your mind starts to dreaming
Of the moment that it's time to leave
And then you look at your plate and your chicken's slowly rotting
Into something that looks like cheese
Oh, so you say that's it, I got to leave this place
I don't care what these people think
I'm just sitting here making myself nauseous
With this ugly food that stinks
Oh, so you bust out the door while it's still closed
Still sick from the food you ate
And then you run to the store for quick relief
From a bottle of Kaopectate
And then you call your friend a two weeks later
To see how he has been
And he says "I understand about the food
Baby bubba, but we're still friends"

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Hot Take/Challops alert: The Chicken Verse is actually rather good and provides a nice break from all the braggadocio.

Not that rapping about, say, having a bigger dick than Superman or being able to watch Knicks basketball on a color TV don’t also kick ass, you understand.

would be great to find some hip-hop without all the braggadocio, if anyone has any recommendations

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

can't argue with that

as we proceed Ego Trip's Rap Singles 1980

i didn't know we were voting for most popular . . .

haha we weren't Austin!

I think in polls to come we'll see more vote splitting, but Rapper's Delight was never going to lose this I'm afraid