Sugarhill Gang for Head of State

Nigerian Rap: The First Decade 1981-1991 Mix

Absolutely do not sleep on this amazing mix. I'm kind of amazed how fast Hip-Hop traveled (back?) across the Black Atlantic, 1980 is usually the earliest I've seen it show up outside of NYC in places like Washington D.C., Baltimore, ect. It didn't even get going on the West Coast until 1982 with Too Short! I have to warn you all, there is some funky-ass shit within this hour and a half. What the source has to say:

The first hip-hop record to achieve widespread popularity in Nigeria was “Rapper’s Delight” by The Sugarhill Gang, in 1979. Thirty years later, hip-hop is the premier pop music of Nigeria, dominating radio play as well as the sales charts, feted in megabudget videos, glossy magazines and glitzy award shows. When the average Nigerian kid decides to get into the music biz, the first impulse is not to grab a guitar or a talking drum, but to pick up a microphone.

It was a long way from there to here, though. For years, the earliest attempts at homegrown rap were ridiculed, resisted or downright reviled by the mainstream. And in some cases, perhaps, rightfully so: they were often awkward, overly imitative, fatuous. But they also laid the foundation for the 2Faces, the 9ices, the D’Banjes, Ruggedmans, Modenines and the rest of today’s Naija hip-hop superstars. So here’s our salute to some of the groundbreakers in the first decade of Nigerian hip-hop.

I'm about to get buckwild on their other radio shows.