Member of influential rap trio Sugarhill Gang, dead at 58
A member of the old-school rap trio, The Sugarhill Gang, Big Bank Hank passed away Nov. 11 from kidney complications due to cancer. The Sugarhill Gang is most fondly remembered for their 1979 song “Rapper’s Delight,” which is frequently cited as the first commercial hip hop single. Featuring Hank alongside fellow group members Wonder Mike and Master Gee freestyling over an interpolation of Chic’s “Good Times,” the song topped the charts internationally upon its release, and usher in a musical form that remains the dominant pop idiom some 35 years later.
The story of “Rapper’s Delight” begins in the summer of 1979, when disco was having its last hurrah, and Chic’s “Good Times” was the song of the summer. At a triple-bill New York City concert on Sept. 20, 1979, alongside Blondie and Talking Heads, Chic would perform the song and be accompanied on stage by Fab Five Freddy and members of The Sugarhill Gang, who would rhyme over the break section of the song. One of the audience members during this historic event was music executive Sylvia Robinson, who saw the commercial potential in capitalizing on the “Good Times” phenomenon, and in producing a record in this new style of music. Rounding up Big Bank Hank, Wonder Mike, and Master Gee into the studio, The Sugarhill Gang would freestyle for 15 minutes over a live band that imitated the Chic members’ guitar and bass parts. Cut to acetate, the record would be released a couple months later and achieve huge success.
Hip hop music has made great strides in terms of developing as an art form, but it was early artists like The Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five who would create the foundation. Performing rhythmic spoken word on topics, ranging from life in the ghetto to living the dream over chopped-up snippets of Afro-originated music, these early artists opened a dialogue that continues some 35 years later. Though only contributing a few verses on a single iconic song, Big Bank Hank will go down as a small, but important, part of this legacy.