Above, listen to Soundcheck host John Schaefer talking with All Things Considered host Richard Hake about the legacy of rapper Big Bank Hank. Below, John Schaefer writes about the first time he heard the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight."
Henry Jackson, better known as Big Bank Hank of the pioneering rap group the Sugarhill Gang, died Tuesday of complications from cancer.
When I first heard "Rapper's Delight," the groundbreaking single from the Sugarhill Gang, I wasn't quite sure what I was hearing. It was obviously built on Chic's hit single "Good Times," but with three guys kinda rhythmically talking over it. This was the first time much of America encountered the word "rapper" used in this context, and the first time we heard the words "hip" and "hop" used together in a sentence that didn't also contain the word "bunny."
But that's not what was puzzling me. I'd been traveling to school every day through some rough neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and then in the Bronx when I started college, and I'd seen a lot of guys - it was always guys - on the trains with boomboxes, blaring loud chanted lyrics over repeated drum patterns. It was raw and thrilling, and threatening – by association, I guess, since I often ran into trouble with some of these kids.
But "Rapper's Delight" was different. It wasn't just the obvious party sound of the Chic song; the guys doing the vocals sounded… nice. The song was like a sanded-smooth, airbrushed version of the stuff I heard on the subways. Except for the one guy in the middle of the song. The one they introduced as Hank.
Big Bank Hank had a bigger, deeper, more rough-edged voice than Wonder Mike and Master Gee, the other two rappers. And while I couldn't make out all the words, his rapping was full of swagger and braggadocio. Even his famous line about the "Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn" seemed vaguely R-rated.
Turned out, there was a reason for why Big Bank Hank's rap had an echo of the streets. He'd basically gotten his rhymes from his friend Grandmaster Caz, from the Cold Crush Brothers. In fact, in the original, 14-minute long version of "Rapper's Delight," Hank introduces himself as the "C-A-S-An'-the-O-V-A, and the rest if F-L-Y." Well, Casanova Fly was another name that Caz used – so Hank basically introduces himself by spelling out someone else's name. Classic.
But wherever the lines came from, Hank made them work. And with the passage of time, a song that seemed a little silly at first came to take its place as something important. Hip hop wasn't going to stay a street art; it was going global, thanks to "Rapper's Delight" and the songs that followed in its wake.
The party mood continued with Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks" in 1980, then Blondie's "Rapture," written in 1980 but released in 1981, and the Cold Crush Brothers themselves, with "The Weekend" in 1982. Hard to imagine any of those songs having the impact they did without Big Bank Hank and the rest of the Sugarhill Gang paving the way.