Composed of one DJ and five rappers, the group’s use of turntablism, break-beat deejaying, choreographed stage routines, and lyricism was a significant force in the early development of hip-hop music. This act included a 19 year old Angie Stone and their first single ‘ Funk You Up‘ (the second release for Sugar Hill) went Gold. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was an influential American hip hop group formed in the South Bronx of New York City in 1978. The next -but perhaps lesser known- highlight in Robinson’s career was her signing of the first recorded all-female rap/funk group The Sequence (also in 1979). This led to her launching Sugar Hill’s first act, The Sugarhill Gang and ‘ Rapper’s Delight‘, the first rap song to become a top 40 hit in the US. She co-founded Sugar Hill Records in 1979 (when her husband’s label All Platinum was losing money), reportedly after being inspired to record the underground rapping style she heard at Harlem parties. Sylvia Robinson was a producer for the track and, as a Record Executive for Sugar Hill Records and the person who signed Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, she also played a huge part in its inception. You got to have a con in this land of milk and honey Wear a shirt and tie and run with the creepsĬause it’s all about money, ain’t a damn thing funny If I just got a job, learned to be a street sweeper Many of the lyrics seem particularly relevant in today’s highly aspirational and Conservative political climate:
Sometimes using problematic stigmatising language to describe the desperate situations experienced by people living in a forgotten ghetto, it acts as a first person account of the frustration and despair experienced when being suffocated by one’s circumstances. Consisting of one DJ and five rappers, the group played a significant role in the development of early hip hop music, incorporating elements such as break-beat deejaying, turntablism and socially conscious lyrics. ‘The Message’ was written by Duke Bootee and the late “ mother of Hip-hop” Sylvia Robinson. The hip hop group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was formed in South Bronx, New York City in 1976. (According to Melle Mel, the group were used to doing party raps boasting about how good they were.) Speaking about the track to NPR a decade later, rapper Melle Mel said that he hadn’t thought the record “would be pivotal either way” and was therefore shocked by positive responses to test plays in both a Manhattan record shop and Bronx club ( Disco Fever), having assumed the record would result in “a lapse in the intensity of the crowd”. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five‘s hit was widely credited as the “ first prominent Hip-Hop song to provide a lyrical social commentary” but was not immediately embraced by members of the group when they were introduced to it by their label Sugar Hill. In the early 1980s, before the political hip hop standard ‘ The Message‘ was released, hip-hop was largely about partying. Socially conscious hip-hop co-produced by Sugar Hill founder Sylvia Robinson Band member Cowboy was the first to use the word hip hop, while Melle Mel was the first rapper to call himself MC (Master of Ceremony).
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