« Previous · Next »

“Taking my life into my hands,” writes Robert Sharp of Solihull, United Kingdom, “I send this gentle correction and hopefully I will be neither the first nor the last one to do so. In the entry on Sugar Hill Records on p.121, the phrase ‘the first hip-hop record, “Rapper’s Delight,” a CHIC-sampling 1979 hit...’ occurs. I am sure that such learned gentlemen as yourselves will be aware of the inaccuracy of this ‘sampling’ detail. First of all, early sampling technology permitted only a few seconds of material to be sampled. Second, in 1979 I’m not even sure samplers or the trusty Fairlight had even quite made it to market. Third, the entire ‘Rapper’s Delight’ groove was recreated in the studio by session musicians. I quote from Lewis Dene’s sleevenote for Back to the Old School: Sugarhill Club Classics (1999): ‘The music is live rather than sampled: a smooth, supercharged house band backed most Sugar Hill artists, beginning with Positive Force recreating Chic’s “Good Times” as the basis for “Rapper’s Delight.”’”

Robert, to quote from Shakespeare (William, not Robbie): Saucy, pedantic wretch! We used the word “sampling” in the pre-digital sense of “lifting a musical figure intact from another song,” and we know all about Positive Force. Sugar Hill founder Sylvia Robinson played vibes in this house band!