Rapper's Delight

I mean, most famously was Big Mama Thornton, who did Hound Dog and then was covered by Elvis Presley just four years later in the 50s.

And actually, the more the things I was looking into when we were recording this was about this woman, Sylvia Robinson, who produced Rapper's Delight, which I'm sure you can rap for us now, Ollie, actually.

That's just a

bonus for people who are prepared to pay for our OnlyFans.

Yeah, I can imagine that.

When you were, I was reading some of the background on you, which was super interesting, but I love the notion of you in the Army, right? performing your own raps over Rapper's Delight instrumental.

That's got to be genius.

Were you freestyling? Did you write stuff? Do you remember any of it?

So they liked that shit.

And I was like, yo, okay, I'll make these rhymes for these cats and stay on their good side.

And then when Rapper's Delight came out, I was like, I can do that.

Because I'm already doing it.

I guess it's the first, um, the first of rap- like, what is it?

Rapper's Delight?

Rapper's Delight made it onto vinyl.

Oh.

Rapper's Delight made it onto vinyl.

Said, "A hip, hop, the hippie to the hippie, to the hip hop pop, you won't stop, da, da, da, bang, bang."

And once it started-

...

the reason that, um, uh, Rapper's Delight sounds so generic but is a classic is because they were spinning breaks for hip hop artists to use.

Spinning two, boom, back to back, back to back, back to back.

What did Rapper's Delight do? They hired a band to play a fucky, uh, funky riff break.

Mm.

And they played that-

So he was a breakdancer back in the day as well.

He listed Rapper's Delight as the record that inspired him to start taking rap more seriously.

That dropped in 1979, so Buss would have been 7 years old at the time.

He said to GQ, When I heard that song, man, I just knew.

Like...

King Tim III and Rapper's Delight and Daz.

What is that? The Adventures of Super Rhyme.

Like, oh, wow, I remember when my brother bought that record.

That walking bass line from Bernard Edwards is...

You know, the basis for so much, including the very first rap hit record, Rapper's Delight by the Sugarhill Gang.

Also the basis for Queen's Another One Bites the Dust in 1980.

But

But while a lot of fans think ghostwriting is only a modern problem, it turns out it's been a part of the rap game since the very beginning.

Rapper's Delight by The Sugarhill Gang is considered to be the first song that introduced mainstream audiences to hip hop [singing] Hip hip, the hippie, the hippy to the hip, hip hopping and you don't stop, rockin'...

The song was released in 1979 and peaked at number 36 in the Hot 100.

But Rapper's Delight was partially written by Grandmaster Caz, a Bronx rapper who was never officially credited for his contributions.

I mean ba- basically I wrote everything Hank said on Rapper's Delight.

Okay.

I'm the C-A-S and the O-V-A, that's my name, Casanova Fly.

And while plenty of artists use ideas from other songwriters, Drake's seeming imitation of reference tracks recorded by artists like Lil Yachty, Ivory, and Quentin Miller seem to be far beyond the pale.