The Hoboken Cafe 

Poll: Who would all you music people out there say was
the first to have a Rap tune hit the Pop charts and when?
hummmm??????????/

Come on now - everyone knows it was the Sugar Hill Gang - "Rapper's Delight"

The 1st rap act 2 hit the top 40 charts was RUN-DMC. tHE Sugar Hill only hit on the Dance chart was a short time in the late 70's.
Then there R sum "critics" who say that the tune Rapture by Blondie was the rap sung 2 hit the top 40 charts. Mainly b'cuz of the heavy FAB FAV FREDDIE infurence.
The Beastie Boys were the 1st 2 hit number One on both the top 40 album and singles charts.

PeAcE...2 FINgers,
THe NajiK

Najik - yes a few people have told me that the first Rap song to hit Pop charts (mainstream) was none other than "Blondie" also known as "Debbie Harry" and it was the song "Rapture" back in 1980?. She had hits back as far as the mid. 1970's??

Then another said it was the song "Amadeus"??

I haven't seen any facts on these statements but the people who told me this were all music\art people.

I figured I'd ask here on the music board to see if it's true.

The first rap song to reach the top 40 was "Rapper's Delight." It was not the first rap record released. That belongs to The Fatback Band's "King Tim III." Fatback beat Sugar Hill by a few months, but did not score a pop hit....possibly because Fatback's record label released the song as a B side. Plus, it wasn't a rip off of a current disco hit.

One could argue that rap appeared on vinyl long before 1979. A 1972-73 album by Lightenin' Rod, from the proto-rap group The Last Poets, released an all rhyming album called "Hustler's Convention." (With backing music by Kool and the Gang and other well known performers.) Not only is it all in rhyme, the content is identical to the gangsta rap albums that would come 20 years later.

Or we could look at the original rappers...guys and gals who were doing rap before rap meant rhyming. Isaac Hayes, Millie Jackson, Barry White, etc.

"Rapture" was the first #1 hit....to feature a rap. Many people don't realize how influential Blondie was in the underground hip hop scene.

Josh, the Sugar Hill Gang never hit the Top 40 chart. Just the Billboard dance charts.

PeAcE...2 FINgers,
THe NajiK

actually, i have read in many places that it DID break into the top 40 charts. i don't know if there's a place online to find weekly charts from that time (and i don't have the book that lists them all), but i did see it listed as #38 for the year of 1980 (Billboard top 40) and # 38 on CASEY KASEM’S AMERICAN TOP 40 (week of 1/12/80)

three words, suger hill gang.

Check this out... aside from many musicans telling me that "Blondie" aka "Debbie Harry" was the first artist to get a top 40 Pop Hit (Rapture) that took Rap mainstream,
I was also told by several musicans that a very FIRST
PREMATURE attempt at Rap that hit the top 40 Pop charts
& went mainstream was none other than "The Monster Mash"
by Boris. hehehe...

I'm not a musical person and i really dont know who it was that took a Rap song to mainstream Pop top 40 but I find all the different points of view from musicians, DJ's, and\or people who know\like music to be interesting.