|
Click to Buy it From Amazon.Com
|
|
Label: Sugarhill Records
Song Listing
1. Here I Am
2. Rapper’s Reprise (Jam-Jam) Guest Artist – The Sequence
3. Bad News
4. Sugar Hill Groove
5. Passion Play
6. Rapper’s Delight
Reviews
This was the group’s first full length LP. Released in the early spring of 1980,this record contains very funky grooves and cool arrangements. Even though this was a rap group, not everything on this LP has nothing to do with hip hop. There are only 3 hip hop tracks included on this collective such as the funky, guitar driven “Sugar Hill Groove” with a kick ass guest appearance by the late Tito Puente), the classic label mate team up “Jam Jam-Rapper’s Reprise” with female trio, The Sequence which included a young and feisty Angie Stone who was known as Angie B and knows how to hold her own with her heated rhymes on this hype cut) and their classic, heavily trimmed version of “Rapper’s Delight” (apparently, editing hip hop songs for album versions were not yet developed at the time this album was in production). The non hip hop cuts like the slow, boring “Here I Am” which sounds like one of those dumb ass songs that a teenage boy would sing to his high school sweetheart), the laid back “Bad News” this cut should’ve been written for funk/R&B group, Heatwave) and the Sugar Hill rhythm section instrumental “Passion Play” a laid back cut with a heavy bass line and a funky rhythm guitar). A good effort to start out with, but not quite there. Apparently around that time, the house band was still auditioning more sounds to bring the label into more prominence as they were later on in the label’s run. There wasn’t that vibe that we heard in the group’s later recordings which at that time were still in the demo stage when this album was released. The album is a classic but it still leaves you to wanting more to make it complete. Sugar Hill Records knew that as well. The idea of a album by a rap group was very experimental as in the new culture called Hip Hop. They didn’t stop there. They still kept feeding us and 22 years later, we are all nurtured.(5 stars out of 10) Submitted by TG
