The New York City Fresh Festival, The Def Jam Tour and The Raising Hell Tour were all instrumental in furthering rap as a legitimate genre that could not only generate revenue from recordings, but from live shows as well. As iconic as these tours were, they were not the first, and they were at least partially possible because of the tour that preceded them. In the early 1980's, Sugar Hill Records sponsored a series of tours called The Sugar Hill Revue.

The Sugar Hill Revue, which was later referred to as The Rappers Convention, borrowed from the concept of Berry Gordy and his Motown Records sponsored Motown Revue which featured Motown's biggest stars traveling the country on tour. The Sugar Hill Revue featured The Sugar Hill Gang, Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5, The Funky 4 + 1, The Sequence, The Crash Crew, Spoonie Gee, The Treacherous 3, The Mean Machine and Wayne & Charlie — a ventriloquist-dummy act who acted as hosts and comic relief between acts and also recorded the single, "Check it Out," on Sugar Hill Records.

These tours, which sold out arenas and coliseums across the country and eventually the world, were backed by the Sugar Hill Records house band, which consisted of drummer Keith LeBlanc, bassist Doug Wimbish, guitarist Bernard "Skip" Alexander, percussionist Ed "Duke Bootee" Fletcher and vocalist Craig Derry. The only act that didn't use the band was Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5.

Group member Scorpio told The Foundation, "What Flash did was so connected to the group and our routines that we couldn't do our show with a band."

R&B acts Skyy and TS Monk were often on the bill with their respective hits, "Call Me" and "Bon Bon Vie," which were wildly popular at the time. Drummer Keith LeBlanc told Rock The Bells that they encountered and played with many R&B acts during the early 80's.

"We would perform with The Bar-Kays, Pleasure, Parliament Funkadelic and WAR back then," he said. "The guys from WAR told us that their kids didn't listen to WAR anymore, they were only listening to rap records."

On May 9, 1981, Sugar Hill's 1st Annual Rappers Convention was held at the 369th Regiment Armory in New York and featured The Sugar Hill Gang, Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5, The Crash Crew, Spoonie Gee, The Sequence, The Treacherous 3 and TS Monk. ABC's 20/20 was on hand to film a special segment on rap music, which became rap's first nationally televised news piece, and featured footage from the concert. The concert was unfortunately cut short due to what was gunfire or an electrical circuit malfunctioning, depending on who is telling the story.

The late Ed Fletcher aka Duke Bootee told The Foundation that he thought it was gunfire at the time. "I had my piece with me and I dived under a table," he remembered. "I remember some of the news people with ABC trying to seek shelter with me under the table."

The Rappers Convention tours were the blueprint for live rap tours. According to The Big Payback by Dan Charnas, Sugar Hill Records founder Sylvia Robinson was offered an opportunity to be a partner in the Fresh Festival tours in the mid 80's.

"Sylvia Robinson turned away potential partners like [Fresh Festival Founder] Ricky Walker, and ignored changes in the industry to her own disadvantage," he wrote.

Duke Bootee echoed those sentiments. "Sylvia had a chance to be part of the 'Fresh Fest' when it first started," he said. "She felt that she had all the biggest artists and had already done that."