EARLY RAP IN THE UK TOP 40

EARLY RAP IN THE UK TOP 40 (not a definitive list cos I’m doing it quickly and haven’t heard everything)

Dec 79: Sugarhill Gang - Rappers Delight #3
Dec 79: Kurtis Blow - Christmas Rappin #30
Jan 81: Blondie - Rapture #5
Jun 81: Evasions - Wikka Wrap #20
Jun 81: Tom Tom Club - Wordy Rappinghood #7
Dec 81: Adam And The Ants - Ant Rap #3
Jan 82: Modern Romance - Queen Of The Rapping Scene #37
Aug 82: Grandmaster Flash - The Message #8
Dec 82: Malcolm McLaren - Buffalo Girls #9
Jan 83: Wham! - Wham! Rap #8
Mar 83: Kenny Everett - Snot Rap #9
Jul 83: Gary Byrd & GB Experience - The Crown #6
Oct 83: Rocksteady Crew - Hey You (Rocksteady Crew) #6
Nov 83: Roland Rat Superstar - Rat Rappin #14
Feb 84: Break Machine - Street Dance #3
Feb 84: Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel - White Lines #7
Feb 84: Mel Brooks - To Be Or Not To Be (The Hitler Rap) #12
Mar 84: Afrika Bambaataa - Renegades Of Funk #30

And then I got bored. Research done for this thread. What did I miss?

1. Mark M on September 13th, 2007

   There’s a vital point at the top of this list: Rapture is often credited – inc by folk like Fab Five Freddy, who is of course mentioned on it – with bringing rap to a wider audience. But it followed two big ‘proper’ early hip hop hits. What’s interesting, I guess, is how long the old school/novelty years lasted.

2. Marcello Carlin on September 14th, 2007

   Arguable:
   Jul 68: Pigmeat Markham - Here Comes The Judge #19
   (not to be confused with the simultaneously charting version by Shorty Long which was sung rather than “rapped”)

3. FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on September 14th, 2007

   isn’t the point that rapture brought it to an in-crowd audience? who’d heard of rap before but not been open enough to see the possibilities? (or possibly: liked it — debbie’s rap has a goofy “will this do”? charm which sez THIS IS FUN YOU CAN DO BETTER WHY NOT TRY whereas the earlier two are technically adept (=feels out of reach?) as well as a bit hermetic (DO I GET THIS? NOT SURE) *and* novelty-esque (IS THIS REPEATABLE? NOT SURE) — so they took rap to a wide audience yes but not in a way that said “this is yours also”?

   (obv another way to express that is “white folks be stealin black music”– but the existence of a certain kind of white listener is part of what gave post-old skool the useable encouragement) (i’ve always thought anyway) (have to go, chuck D is on the phone, i better talk fast…)

4. Mark M on September 14th, 2007

   I know tha’s the theory, and it is certainly there in Wild Style, with Blondie as the bridge from the Bronx to the East Village, but I’m still sceptical about whether that really happened. The Message – the track that takes rap beyond novelty for both the wider and critical audience (for good or ill) came a pop eon after Rapture, by which time I don’t think Blondie’s endorsement was so weighty.

5. Marcello Carlin on September 14th, 2007

   Regarding IS THIS REPEATABLE? it should be noted that due to sampling restrictions at the time the Sugarhill house band had to play the “Good Times” riff over and over again for fifteen minutes on the full-length “Rappers’ Delight”; since they went on to become Tackhead/Mark Stewart’s Maffia they are thus the missing link between Terry Riley and Massive Attack.

   Also NO ONE in Britain had heard of Flash when DH namechecked him in “Rapture” since IPen’s page-long NME rave review of “Wheels Of Steel” appeared a full month after “Rapture” was a hit so that was beyond cool (WOS/Message dichotomy being the popist/rockist divide, i.e. WE MUST TAKE IT SERIOUSLY ERGO END OF FUN).

6. Kuen-Wah Cheung on August 7th, 2008

   Thanks for such a great list!

   Wham’s ‘Young Guns (Go For It)’ charted in November 1982, a few months before ‘Wham Rap!’s re-release.