Evolution is a funny old thing. When Darwin proposed the idea in 1859, he thought it was a slow and painstaking process that allowed things to make logical progress, one step building on another. However, as more and more study has been done, it has been shown that sometimes – just sometimes – evolution jumps forward for no apparent reason, leaving everything that was behind it scratching their heads and wondering what the fuck to do now.
When the Sugarhill Gang burst on to the charts with ‘Rapper’s Delight’ in 1979, for better or worse, music, as we then knew it, changed forever. Before its release, popular music in New York was a mix of Motown infused soul singers and decadent disco hedonists, and after, they were left in the dust as NY’s burgeoning hip-hop scene took the limelight and sped off into the future.
OK. I admit that calling the Sugarhill Gang the originators of rap is a bit unfair both to the band and everyone else that was involved in the NY scene of the late 70’s. Like the atom, hip-hop had always been there, but the genius of Sugarhill was to package it in a way that was accessible to the masses, thereby kick-starting the whole revolution that we’re still living with today, and that’s a fact that nobody can deny.
Like all revolutionaries, the Sugarhill Gang are still stubbornly refusing to be pigeon-holed.
It must also be said that I giggled like a fucking moron through the whole thing.
How do you guys cope with having to talk about Rapper’s Delight?
Master Gee: Man, it makes me think about going out on a ledge and jumping.
Big Bank Hank: That being said, it’s keeping SugarHill records afloat…
MG: Nah, man we do a lot of interviews, and it’s one of those songs that everybody just loves so it’s kinda of a done deal; We get asked about it, we sigh and answer the questions- it’s an occupational hazard.
I bet you get a lot of free stuff from Holiday Inn though?
BBH: Ha ha, we wish …
MG: Honestly, we haven’t had a damn thing, I’d love an endorsement from Holiday Inn, we do so much damn travelling.
So, as we’ve established, you guys have been around for almost 40 years – how do you think rap is doing nowadays?
BBH: Life is a big cycle and rap is the same. When we came out our message was all about our experiences of living in an inner city, which kinda developed into that whole violent and misogynistic thing of the mid-nineties, which again adapted into all that bling, bling stuff. Right now, you’ve got a bit of everything.
So, you’d say it’s pretty healthy right now?
MG: Yeah, it’s great, there’s a whole bunch of people keeping it real giving us a whole smorgasbord of styles. When this whole thing developed in the early eighties a lot of people were like ‘this ain’t gonna last’ and now if you could say one thing it’s that hip-hop is definitely here to stay.
What do you make of the whole explosion of British hip-hop and Grime?
BBH: We have been very, very excited about what’s been going on over here.
As hip-hop has evolved over the years, do you feel you’ve had to adapt your sound?
BBH: No, not really, I mean technology has changed which has given us different ways of expressing what we have to say…
MG: Yeah, the formula is still there, it’s just been chopped up, changed and moved around a little bit. I mean technology has allowed us to do things that just weren’t possible back when, making it a whole lot more interesting.
BBH: I mean the public aren’t stupid, some people like us and some people don’t. All we’ve tried to do is make music that is evocative and provocative, we have our own fans and we don’t have to change.
You did that album for kids’ way back in 1999; do you guys actively try and make hip-hop more accessible?
BBH: We did that a few years ago through Sugarhill records, who didn’t really push it as much as we’d like – mostly due to the fact that Sugarhill doesn’t believe in publicity. But I’m very proud of that project, Schoolhouse Rock, in fact I was listening to it the other day, as I was going through some old CDs and I was like ‘daaaaamm that was a great song’.
MG: We’re a pretty global group, and we’ve made a name for ourselves by not assuaging violence, cussing or any of that. We try and set ourselves apart from that kind of thing and I think people appreciate it. I’d say 80% of our fans are tired of the attitude that comes from hip-hop and we just try and come up with things that are new and fresh- things that make sense of hip-hop in general.
So you could say you’re putting the fun back in hip-hop?
BBH: Ha ha, you could say that.
MG: Music shouldn’t aim to tear down, music should edify, and whether that’s through positivity or negativity that’s absolutely fine, as long as it sticks to achieving those goals.
Whoa… so where’s next for you guys?
Words: Dominic Haley
Illustration: Miles Donovan
Interview first appeared in Fused Magazine issue 35
