When it comes to early hip hop, it doesn't get much more iconic than the Sugar Hill Gang. Although often wrongly credited with making the first rap record (the birth of recorded hip hop was actually the Fatback Band's 'King Tim III' months earlier than 'Rapper's Delight'), they certainly had the first gold rap record and, through it's massive success, brought an avant garde movement out of the Bronx and gave it to the world.
The Sugar Hill Gang look like they're having fun the whole time they're on stage and are determined to include everyone else in that fun. British audiences can often be a little lacklustre when it comes to call and response but their enthusiasm is so infectious they soon have the audience eating from the palms of their hands. At one point they split the crowd in three and play the classic 'which side is loudest' game. With the audience newly hyped the DJ drops house of pain's jump around instrumental and the place explodes into a mass pogo. Quickly following this with a 10 minute version of Apache is a master stroke and everyone is rapping along with hands in the air.
The only bum note is the tune they did with Bob Sinclar last year. They call it their '21st century song' because it's the only thing they've released since their heyday. It's not the worst song ever it's just not a real Sugar Hill tune and although it's got them on it providing the hype and old school clichés there is no getting away from the fact that it's a pretty average house tune with a chorus that goes 'lala'.
When they make to leave as though they're finished they are duly called back to the stage and pretend to not know what song it is everyone is baying for, instead rapping bits of other classics like Naughty by Nature's O.P.P. This pantomime element is apparent throughout the show but it's fun and avoids being cringe worthy despite the 'dad-joke' feel of it. Eventually the DJ drops Rapper's Delight and a joyous rap-a-long begins. The Chic-sampled bass-line bounces around the Garage and everyone dances like they're in the end scene of Wildstyle.
By the time we leave the place is nearly empty, but Hen Dogg is still taking pictures and signing autographs with the stragglers. It pretty much sums up their attitude. After 30 years of touring and performing together, Sugar Hill are consummate showmen, and brand ambassadors for hip hop as something other than the egregious orgy of excess and misogyny that has somehow become acceptable, even lauded, in modern hip hop. As Master Gee points out at the end, they haven't said a negative thing all night, not denigrated women, not used the 'N word' once. It's true, and a shame it should even be a talking point, but in a scene where the glorification of murder and drug dealing has become the norm, Sugar Hill are once again the avant garde.
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PHOTO: Theo Martindale (Snap, Crackle, and Drop)
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