Another early 80's article about rap music: "Music Makers: Not What You Say, But How You Say It"

Another early article about rap music, this time from The Associated Press. It's dated August 28, 1981.

Music Makers: Not What You Say, But How You Say It
By YARDENA ARAR


Hey, baby, have you heard? The word is the rap and the rap is the word. It's a party kind of music, a tres hip thing, Any number can play, and you don't have to sing.
All right, it's admittedly a crude effort. But in rap music it's not so much what you say as how you say it, and with the right rapper and a good get-down disco rhythm track, there's a fair chance even Mother Goose could make it to the Top 40 these days.

There are rap records on almost every subject and, apparently, a market for almost every rap. Although rap music -- basically rhymes that are spoken, not sung, over a bare-bones dance beat -- typically is played anywhere people gather to dance, at least one radio station, Cleveland's WDMT-FM, features rap to rev up by every morning in a "Toothbrush Beat" spot.
All 120,000 copies in the first pressing of Kurtis Blow's "Christmas Rap" sold out within a week last December. New York comedian Russ Mason's strings-backed "Prep Rap" ("We don't wear designer jeans. While they fit rather well, they look like hell. We get khakis from L.L. Bean.") earned him a spot on Tom Snyder's "Tomorrow" show.
For the occasion, Mason says he wore an alligator shirt, khaki pants and Topsiders, "but I committed a grave faux pas by wearing socks."
A soap-opera inspired rap, "General Hospi-Tale" by Afternoon Delight, is a popular new entry, Teena Marie's "Square Biz" is a certified hit, and Record World magazine's resident rap authority, Nelson George, says that somewhere in his collection is a "Jewish Rap" by Steve Goodman and the Kosher Five.
And then there are the big commercial successes. "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang, which was credited with launching the rap rage when it came out two years ago, has sold 2.5 million copies domestically, and untold millions more overseas.
Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks," became the second 12-inch single to be certified gold, after the Donna Summer-Barbara Streisand smash "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)." And rap went white and mainstream in a big way with the 1.4 million-selling, No. 1 Blondie tune, "Rapture," Deborah Harry and Chris Stein's tribute to the form and the black New York-area disc jockeys who developed it by delivering their rhymed patter over instrumental tracks from disco hits.

One of the interesting things about rap music is that it's become a musical meeting ground for two traditional enemies: disco and new wave rock.
Miss Harry, for example, recently released a rap-laced solo album, "KooKoo," produced by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic fame. And Britain's The Clash rapped out socio-political commentary in "The Magnificent Seven" from the "Sandinista" LP.
"This is like street music to them," says Record World's George of the attraction of new-wavers to rap. "If they feel it's genuine black street stuff, they're willing to accept it."
Although accomplished rappers -- mostly DJs who go by such flashy sounding stage names as Kurtis Blow (blow being a slang term for cocaine), Grandmaster Flash and Deejay Hollywood -- make their rapid-fire delivery sound spontaneous, raps require as much if not more work than regular songs.

"You have to get a concept," says the Sugar Hill Gang's Master Gee, an 18-year-old whose given name is Guy O'Brien.
"Then after you get the best possible concept you start forming it into the lyrics which are the rhymes. Then when you have the most possible material and cleverness you apply it to a musical track. You edit, polish up different things with production staff and when push comes to shove you have a record."
O'Brien, who developed his craft working as a mobile disc jockey, was brought together with fellow Gang members Mike Wright (Wonder Mike) and Hank Jackson (Big Bank Hank) by Sylvia and Joe Robinson of Sugar Hill Records, an Englewood-based independent that has become the big name in rap records.
The Robinsons came up with the idea of using not one but all three talented rappers over the instrumental track from the Chic disco hit, "Good Times" for "Rapper's Delight."
"We didn't know each other until the night we made the record," O'Brien says. "We just applied what we learned on the streets."

NY Times, 1981: 'Rapping is probably familiar to most New Yorkers as an intrusive noise on the subway or in the park'

Another early article about rap music, this time from the New York Times. It's dated March 13, 1981. A lot has changed in 30 years.

POP: THE SUGAR HILL GANG

By Robert Palmer

RAPPING, a kind of rhythmic versifying with skeletal instrumental or unrecorded accompaniment, began in Harlem, the South Bronx and other black communities in the New York area. A white rock group, Blondie, has carried the rapping style into the national Top 10 with the hit single, ''Rapture,'' but the champion rappers are the Sugar Hill Gang, Grand Master Flash and the Fabulous Five, and other groups that have sold large quantities of records but seldom perform for white audiences.
Rapping moved downtown for a night on Wednesday when the Ritz presented a cavalcade of rappers. The Sugar Hill Gang, whose ''Rapper's Delight'' was one of the first rap hits, headlined the show. The three men who do most of the group's rapping took turns declaiming rhymed couplets and chimed in as a unison chorus on key phrases while a tight band laid down funk rhythms that were heavily accented on the first beat of each measure. The band also accompanied Sequence, three women in glittering costumes whose raps were as fast and funny as those of the men.

Grand Master Flash and an assistant accompanied the Fabulous Five with a virtuoso performance on two turntables; Flash constructed bass and drum parts by repeatedly playing the first few bars of records by Queen & Chic; he created extravagent special effects by stopping records with his hand while they were playing, while they were spinning, a technique that resulted in a regular, percussive skidding sound. ''What you've just beared witness to is seven men and two turntables,'' one of the group's rappers told the predominantly white, enthusiastic crowd. ''Think about it.''

The Funky 4 Plus 1 provided even more food for thought. The group's five rappers chanted in crisp unison and traded phrases in a kind of whiplash call and response. They were able to inject some personality, and some new rhymes and couplets, into what has already become a fairly standardized idiom, and they were as disciplined as a crack drill team. Their lone disk jockey provided minimal accompanyment by repeating bass figures and drum parts from various funk and disco records. Basically, the Funky 4 Plus 1 provide a kind of rhythmic noise. Melody and harmony have no place in their music, which rides on an irrestible dance beat and various cross rhythms.
The evening featured several surprise guests, including Andy Hernandez from Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, who rapped over the instrumental track of his latest recording, the delightful ''Me No Pop I.'' The Coconuts, who are Mr. Hernandez's associates in the group Kid Creole and the Coconuts, also performed a short set of their own and demonstrated conclusively that they are not spectacular dancers.

Rapping is probably familiar to most New Yorkers as an intrusive noise on the subway or in the park - the noise that comes out of blaring cassette players and portable radios. But as the Ritz show demonstrated, rapping has a much broader appeal than one might have anticipated. It's an intriguing test of the performer's verbal ingenuity and rhythmic exactitude, and its fine.