RIP Big Bank Hank of the Sugarhill Gang

Sugarhill Records

Big Bank Hank

Yesterday, November 11, rap pioneer Henry "Big Bank Hank" Jackson of the Sugarhill Gang died of cancer at the age of 56.

Hank, Michael "Wonder Mike" Wright, and Guy "Master G" O'Brien were the three rappers on rap's first and arguably most identifiable hit, "Rapper's Delight." While not the first commercially released rap single, "Rapper's Delight" is often identified as the record that took rap from house parties to store shelves.

The effects "Rapper's Delight" had on the music business cannot be overstated. This was an entirely new genre, realistically only seven years old, that had no real precedent on radio. It was an avant-garde exercise disguised as a novelty that gave birth to an entire multibillion-dollar industry.

The runaway success of "Rapper's Delight" came as a shock not just to audiences hearing rap for the first time around the country, but to the New York hip-hop community itself. While MCs getting local fame by "rockin' the mic to the break-a break-a dawn" was already an established scene in a growing number of neighborhoods, the Sugarhill Gang were, by some estimates, only barely a part of it. In fact, we spoke to the Hip-Hop Culture Center's Curtis Sherrod, who don't mean to brag don't mean to boasts the largest collection of late-'70s flyers from early hip-hop events, and in his dozens upon dozens of flyers, the names "Big Bank Hank" and "Sugarhill Gang" don't make a single appearance. Legend has it their "outsider" status, along with Hank's alleged but fairly conclusive plagiarizing of Cold Crush Brother's and rap pioneer Grandmaster Caz's rhymes (hence why Big Bank Hank begins his verse not by spelling his name "B-I-G B-A-N-K" but "THE C-A-S-A-N-O-V-A..." which was Caz's trademark opening), made them unpopular with their contemporaries.

But "Rapper's Delight" 's impact was undeniable, and took hip-hop from a phenomenon that was slowly initiating more and more of New York's residents (by some estimates, the culture had just started to penetrate Queens at the time of the track's release) to one blasting all over the world. Sherrod put it in perspective for us as hip-hop going beyond neighborhood recognition to international fame. In one year Hank surpassed every name on those flyers as "Rapper's Delight" touched down in Iowa, China, and Lithuania (despite its creators' likely never having left the city).

While some hip-hop purists view "Rapper's Delight" 's landmark achievements with an eye-roll, the song's existence is absolutely essential to the entirety of hip-hop today. Given that none of the hottest MCs at the time were willing to record their hours-long rap routines, Sugarhill Gang and label head Sylvia Robinson created the blueprint for what the rap single morphed into. If it wasn't for "Rapper's Delight," we wouldn't have "The Message," "Sucker MCs," or any rap recording from the past 35 years.