Master Gee credited Sugar Hill Records founder Sylvia Robinson as a visionary.
"This is a mind-blowing experience for us, there was no way when Ms. Robinson came to us and told us about what she wanted to do that this was going to be the result of it," he said. "I literally thought, because I was 17 [in my] junior year going to senior year, we’d cut the record, it’d be big in the New York Metropolitan area, I would go to 12th grade and try and figure out what I was going to do with my life."
On January 5, 1980, The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" became the first rap record to hit the Billboard Hot 100, reaching #37. The song, which uses an interpolation of Chic's 1979 summer anthem "Good Times," actually reached number 4 on the Hot Soul Singles chart (now known as Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs) on December 1, 1979. Released on September 16, 1979, "Rapper's Delight" is regarded as rap music's first commercially successful recording and the introduction of the genre to those outside of New York's five boroughs. The 15 minute record kicked off Sylvia Robinson's new Sugar Hill Records imprint which would eventually sign Bronx and Harlem crews Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5, The Funky 4 + 1, The Treacherous Three, and The Crash Crew.
The Sugar Hill Gang charted on the Hot Soul Singles charts seven more times until 1984 with hits such as "Apache," "Showdown," "8th Wonder," and "The Lover In You." The Gang has several greatest hits albums to their credit, and they remain one of the busiest touring groups from rap's embryonic years.
