SCHOOL OF ROCK - MONDAY 8/31: Rapper's Delight by The Sugarhill Gang

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HIP HOP is a musical genre consisting of a rhythmic vocal style called rap which is accompanied by backing beats which began on the streets of the Bronx (New York City), in the late 70's.

Keith Cowboy, a rapper with Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, is generally credited with inventing the term when the music was still known as disco rap, As the story goes, Cowboy created the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the U.S. Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers.

Like rock & roll, hip hop has branched out into many other forms including.....new school, old school, gangsta and others and one of its main characteristics is the use of pieces of other songs in a technique called "sampling", which uses instrumental or vocal portions of previous hits or familiar songs by other artists to augment the original lyrics of the rapper.  This has of course, created many lawsuits and other controversies related to song ownership and copyrights - but's that's da juice for many more "School of Rock" lessons in the future!

Using the bassline of Chic's #1 song of 1979 called "Good Times", tonight's School of Rock song is regarded by most as the first major hip hop recording from New Jersey-based Sugar Hill Gang with Rapper's Delight. While not a massive hit on its own (it peaked at #36), it paved the way for 30 years of hip hop history, billions of dollars in sales and an entire new culture on the American and worldwide music scenes!