The FIRST Bass Line in Hip Hop (Is NOT the One You Think)
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- Опубліковано 2 кві 2024
- #bass #basshistory #groove #analysis #paulthompson
What was the FIRST bass line that was rapped over? Rap has existed for years, but--believe it or not--the first commercial single to feature 'rap' in 1979 wasn't "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang. The answer might surprise you!
I'll tell you who recorded this first 'rap' single and how it actually charted for weeks, I'll break down the incredible multi-bass line that makes up the groove of the song, and I'll introduce you to the unsung bassist (and songwriter) who has played some of the funkiest lines...ever.
Let's check out Fatback and how "King Tim III (Personality Jock)" became the first across the finish line in '79.
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A Message from FATBACK:
"He's got the story backwards though. We didn't think "You're My Candy Sweet" was the hit. We knew KTIII was the record but the record company was scared of offending Jocks so we pushed for it to be included on the B side in hopes it would get flipped over. Joe & Sylvia Robinson were made aware of the record and rushed out Rapper's Delight to get ahead of us in exploiting the new genre."
Facts! 😯
Let's not forget Pigmeat Markham "here comes the judge" 1968 and various Gil Scott Heron songs.
I've been arguing this for years. This backs me up. Thanks
Another great lesson, professor. I tell people rapping has been around since late 1930’s. Listen to Preacher and the Bear and you’ll know. And that record came out in 1939
Sounds like rap to me
Listen to some Cab Calloway from that era. Some of those tunes have always sounded like proto-rap to me, at least.
Ozie Ware's 1929 version of "He Just Don't Appeal To Me" (backed by the Duke Ellington Orchestra under the name The Whoopee Makers) has a rap middle section performed by her.
Timing... ... ... .... is everything 👌
Johnny Guitar Watson was rapping on his records also in the seventies. Superman lover and Ring the telephone.
Telephone Bill (ua-cam.com/video/x2QFkQvOaHQ/v-deo.html) came out in 1980, a year after King Tim III.
Somewhere...the Charlie Daniel's Band's,
"The Devil Went Down To Georgia " got overlooked, too. It didn't fit the genre; but, it was certainly "rap".
Uhhhh….
What about Rufus Thomas, Pigmeat Markham and The Maskman in the 60's??
Hey brother I love what you’re doing here!
I am a black man and musician in my sixties, and I grew up loving and listening to the music you feature on your channel I especially like that you give the behind the scenes info of the music scene.
I often wondered about just those things I also love when you break down the techniques and song structures for us. Love it. Love it love it!
I was a college campus DJ in this era, and you are 100 percent spot on. When I saw the video title, I was hoping you wouldn't disappoint. But as usual, you far exceeded all my expectations! Great video , once again.
Thanks for the video Maestro. Bill Curtis made his name in NYC, but he's originally from my hometown of Fayetteville, NC. We definitely knew this song waaaay before we ever heard Rappers Delight.
Bill Curtis is an underrated pocket master like Larry Blackmon of Cameo.
@@Mr-Keyes He was a drummer in the marching band at EE Smith High School in the Ville.
@@Mr-Keyes Called him Da' Human Clock
I've told people about FATBACK having the first Rap song, I believe they though I was crazy. They had never heard of The Fatback Band.
Guess it wuz an Eastcoast thang, since I've heard from New York to Slowvannah 😆
I said it first in your community post and been saying it for years. Fatback is a criminally underrated band that had fantastic grooves and were pioneers in hip hop.
Fatback had some good tracks. Lots of bass heavy jams. Great video!
0:57 as sampled by two great yet criminally underrated West Coast groups: 2nd II None and 415!
THANK YOU FOR RECOGNIZING THIS WAS THE FIRST(INAUGURAL) IN THE '79 RAP REVOLUTION!! I bought that single....I feel so vindicated, right now.
Black And I’m Proud by JB…another rap song before we knew it ✅
I always discover awesome bass lines when I watch a new video from this channel!!!
Thank you for this one. I remember hearing "King Tim III" back in the summer of '79. Whenever I bring it up, it's like noone remembers it.
I ALWAYS said King Tim the III was the first rap song to get national airplay.
The first to reach number one in USA was Blondie and Rapture ..also first pop song to use rap…..👍🏻🇬🇧love you stuff
That was the first rap song I ever heard on the radio, our minds were blown
That jammin' album repped THREE styles in a major way: funk, rap and disco. Loved Flippin's work on "Disco Bass".
Did he play on "Goin' To See My Baby", because that's one of my top bass tracks?
@@koolstup I expect so, since he's listed as co-author of the song.
@@geowilliams8915 actually I was thinking of "Wicky Wacky" which is co-credited to Johnny Flippin too.... true bass legend
Just a general comment to say that I love how diverse you are in what you cover. I mean today you're covering a bass line from a VERY early Hip Hop song but you also frequently mention Rush in your segments. And then yesterday I ran across a video from a year ago where you talked about King Crimson! I love it!
This diversity keeps bringing me back to this channel, the man is a bass history savant.
Your thoughts are always welcome and enlightening. May I mention that the first bass line on Rapper's Delight is from the alan Hawkshaw song "Here Comes That Sound Again," in the intro?
Wow ! I never heard this before. As usual, thanks Paul.
I remember struggling to get those ghost notes CLEAN with any kind of speed. Great song, Professor Paul!
Kudos to you for giving Fatback their due! I Like The Girls should be played in late May before summer and LOUD 🔊🔊🔊🔊
Yay, the Fatback Band - Yum Yum!
Took me back awhile. Before I took off to Europe, I came up under Gerry, Bill, Johnny and the rest of the Fatback crew down at Platinum Sound in Brooklyn. Jimmy Castor Bunch, BT Express, Brass Construction, etc… Fatback had some club bangers BITD - “King Tim” didn’t get a lot of club play but it was loud on the street. ‘Do The Bus Stop”, “Spanish Hustle”, “I Like Girls” and my favorite “I Found Lovin” was definitely filling the dance floors. Not sure it was the “first” iconic bass line for a rap song but it was there in the beginning.
Like others here I remember Gil Scott Heron, The Last Poets and even Blowfly (Clarence Reid down in Miami) but “Jungle Boogie” by Kool and the Gang should get some love. I’d consider Donald Boyce’s ad libs as rap. Maybe… maybe not.
As a newer Bass player,I love this Channel!!!!!😊
We always used to state King Tim 3 was first. i knew it was going to be this before I clicked on it. 👍🔥🔥
Great that Paul's content goes from this ... to Rush. Could almost inspire me to get a music education! 😃
LOOOOOOVE me some Fatback Band. Backstrokin' was the first song I ever heard from them and I was hooked.
Heard that song alot in da Georgia Jook Joints...
They don't say "Juke" they holla Jook‼🤦🏿♂😂
About time!!!! I've been saying this for years too, that the Fatback band had the first rap in a song. Thanks for confirming.
Folks be sleeping on the Fatback band...
I had to watch this twice 👍🏿
Another masterpiece lesson, keep the good work!!
Thank you for telling the world the truth about Fatback being the first. I remember it well 10 years old in late Summer/early Fall 1979 and King Tim III was played all the time on 92 WKTU in NYC, and I even bought the 45 single released on Spring Records because it was so good.
Damn, this track goes hard, love a two-bass bassline. And those SUITS!
Another example of how music mimics life. Timing!!!
This was a great video!
I knew about the Fatback track's place in hiphop history; I thought you were going to reveal another earlier track in the story. No worries, great video as usual.
Rapper's Delite drove me crazy, radio DJ's wore it out and I hoped it would just stop.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 You still sound annoyed
@@theTrend7 It's a neat song, just overplayed. After a while I realized that Rap wasn't a flash in the pan. When Rap came out I was getting deeper into Jazz Fusion and bass players. I do appreciate the vocal delivery but I don't necessarily like the lyrics.
@@CharlieBass5 Kinda can relate to how you felt cause by the time 84' rolled up was kind of tired of Rap, especially having a brother who's a DJ that drove my mom's crazy😆
Slipped more into jazz & fusion during a 6 month stint of laying bass & rhythm guitar tracks for a keyboardist in Tampa, loved da club scene there caught alot of Gr8 bands there and got disappointed when I had ta go back to Savannah.
@@GaryTisdaleFungkSta1 So are you still playing?
Brilliant, what a service this channel is
Thanks for this brother!! 🔥
Paul, this is great! I love these things you put out man. Your content is king.
🙏🏽🙏🏽Gabe!!
Love your channel! You are incredible with your content! Thank you!! But...I believe Fatback's Johnny Flippen's best bassline was on "Do The (Boogie Woogie)" from Brite Lites/Big City.
Thank you for the info! Great stuff!
Always great vids Paul!
Thanks for highlighting these things - it's awesome!
OUT. STANDING. video as always! I totally missed out on this band - time to dig into the back catalog! Thank you!! ✌😌🎸
Yes! Love it! Actually working on a video that incorporates this song as well 🔥
Keep doing whatcha doing Brotha...I enjoy you so much!!!
I bet Dula Peep loves Sugar Hill music 🥰
Great video!! That high bass part on “King Tim” always gets me amped up. I have a friend who was playing in funk bands in 1979 in Richmond, VA and he jokes “that record stole all our little fans.” One example of timing in the music biz was Hank Ballard and Chubby Checker and “The Twist!”! Hank is still a rock and roll hall of fame legend but if he’d have hit big with his original “Twist” he may be even more of a household name to this day.
great info. didn't know this.
When you said Fatback I said finally someone else knows 😂. I just couldn’t remember the song. Thanks
I did not know that about Fatback, my favorite Fatback tune is Backstrokin'
Once again Brotha, you spot on again...Fat Back Band was tight
I think one of the most underrated songs I don't know if it came out in 79 was spoonie gee "spooning"
So cool!!
When I was learning How to Play Bass Back in late 80's,
FATBack was one of the Bands
I listened to....
Yes, I used to get emails from Mr. Curtis. I specifically remember this song. It's much more interesting than the Chic inspired, "Rapper's Delight", in my opinion. Thanks. Best wishes to all.
Yes I remember King Tim III as a backside. I life in the Netherlands and a friend of mine bought that Fatback Band single in an import record shop in The Hague. And I also remember us listening to the B-side. It was weeks before Rappers Delight hit the scene and the rest is history.
never knew that thanks for the education.
Wow - had no idea! Fatback Band had some major Funk hits - Backstrokin, Girl Is Fine, Is This The Future, Freak Undercover, I Found Lovin, Body Language and others! Thanks!!
Facts it happened the way it was supposed to happen.
That's right baby and I have my single in paper.
Brilliant video as always. Where would you say Hustlers Convention and the (uncredited) role Kool and the Gang played in the music sits in the history of Hip Hop?.Would love you to deep dive this one day
that sounded like another one bites the dust
The legendary Nile Rodgers of Chic tells an interesting story about that Bernard Edwards bass line being used on rapper's delight. Definitely worth listening to.
It was well known back in the day that FATBACK was the first "modern" Rap song (modern meaning after the James Brown era, where he and others incorporated a rap-type style in a few songs). It was the Jam, months before Sugar Hill. I still consider Sugar Hill the start of Hip Hop, but Fatback kicked it off.
But PLEASE listen to Fatback's "I Like Girls". Damn that's a funky song. It's like a Jimmy Castor-EU-Mandrill jam session. It's as funky as any funkadelic song.
Bassmaster video man - PLEASE do 'Norman Watt Roy'. PLEASE!
Man I used to tell anyone who’d listen,King Tim III was the first
I had a quick scroll through your videos and didn't see Mark Adams anywhere, did I miss him 🤔
Awesome video as always! One little question though, you mentioned that Good Times was sampled on Rappers’ Delight though I believe it was actually copied by studio musicians that seem to be disputed. I always thought it was Doug Wimbish, but the Wikipedia page says it’s either Bernard Roland or Chip Shearin. Minutae for sure, but it makes sense because samplers weren’t invented yet and they would either have to keep cutting that break or make a tape loop.
Yes. It was (teenager) Chip Shearin.
I used the term “sample” because it’s the colloquial term for what they did. It was absolutely copying (with very tiny changes). Today, we would call it “sampling”.
@@pdbass Absolutely! Isn’t it crazy how far the tech has come, yet it’s nothing without inspired creativity. Thanks for your vids, I always learn something and sorry for pointless nitpicking.
Real Talk One Love
Ok...you have got me going down a rabbit hole. Seriously... I have a friend who is a bassist from Detroit and his name is Ray Flippen and now I got to find out if Johnny Flip Flippen was his daddy. Ray Flippen is a professional bassist and played for a band out of the Dallas Area calle The Mac band and they had a hit in the 80's called "Roses are Red". Now I got to have an awkward conversation with a friend. LOL. Who was your daddy?
Alternate classification for the song - Proto New Jack Swing?
Dude, "I Like Girls" is my sh*t! _"Winter time is gone, and the summer's almost here."_
Such a great groove and a great vibe on that track. Better than "King Tim III", IMO, though the layered bass parts in KT III are definitely fun.
That jazz bass sounds amazing. What model and year is it ?
Thx! Early '00s Geddy Lee made in Japan.
Never heard this before. Sounds like a Stingray.
To give you an idea of how huge Rapper's Delight was: in college (1981) we used to play the long version LP while playing foosball so much that we had the entire song memorized. To this day I can still recite a lot of the lyrics. Fun fact: we're white guys.
Actually, that entire Sugar Hill Gang album has great songs on it esp. Rapper's Reprise. This was back when there were actual musicians playing actual music on rap records.
suggestion: I have a different subject matter. What makes Bootsy Collins such an iconic bass player? what am I missing? he sounds routine to me, like nothing outstanding. don't get me wrong. I love parliament / funkadelic, I've seen them 3x back in the day. today I like my contemporary jazz with a bit of funk.
I like funk music. Those Carioca and Paulista "funk" music has nothing to do with funk from the USA and doesn't shares any characteristics with it
What makes Bootsy great? See: Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker), James Brown esp Give it up or turn it loose (jungle groove). Also watch Bootsy concert video.
A bass player name Skeet that played with the Parliament Funkadelic would have Bootsy for breakfast!
@@spank2424 Skeet is also a great bassist.
@@mattfoley6082 Don’t get me wrong Bootsy is a good bass player especially when he was with James Brown, but he uses to many effects.Skeet was the full package.
🤔Rapper's Delight maybe the first international Hip Hop song but King Tim The III, Captain Sky Super Sporm and Casper's Groovy Ghost Show, been out before Rapper's Delight nationally or at least along the Eastcoast which as far as I can recollect came out in 80' and not 79' which might have been the year it was recorded but it wasn't released until 80' and I distinctly remember those 3 songs being out prior to Rapper's Delight
Could I add a little controversy to this and say that even this might not be the first bass line in Hip Hop? Surmise this: it is 1986. Run DMC is working on what would be their biggest album at the time. Jam Master Jay comes in with a bass and guitar line that they have trouble coming up with lyrics for. Their producer, Rick Rubin recognizes the song as Walk This Way, from Aerosmith. Rubin tells them that they should just cover that song, since it has a hip hop flow to it. Then he gets the even bigger idea of bringing Aerosmith in to record it with them (hence, the first rap/rock crossover). Walk This Way came off of the album Toys in the Attic, which was released in 1976.
First rap single? Bo Diddley 1958, “Say Man.”
Yes indeed. Fat back was the first. I remember when it came out. Late 70's. Before rappers delight. Funky band FATBACK... too bad their timing in the industry was off. Still a bomb band from the jump.
what abt "Silly Putty" by Stanley Clarkes Journey to Love LP? I am sure all the Top 10 charts Funk Bassplayers were heavenly influenced by Stanley!
Did I hear some Harmonic Minor on the bass in "You're My Candy Sweet?"
It seems to me that the meaning of the term “sample” has changed. I believe it used to be that sample or sampling referred to taking an actual recording from another composition and incorporating it into something new, like Fred Stone’s rhythm guitar break in Janet Jackson’s Control. For Rapper’s Delight, and actual band played their version of Chic’s Good Times riff.
I agree: sample means an actual clip of the audio from the recording. Rapper's Delight bass is not a sample.
It is a quote
@@zeusapollo8688 The meaning may have evolved to include that but originally it meant an audio clip from the recording.
Interpolation is the term best described here.
@@FallGuy467 That makes no sense at all.
I think the Parliament Funkadelics were rapping first With Parliament Chocolate City 1975
What about Blowfly?
I keep telling people that King Tim III was the first main stream rap song.
remember Magic carpet ride?
Some are too concerned with labels and overlook substance. It’s been around a long time.
I actually own this on wax
"Rappin' All Over" (1980) by The Marvelous 3 is another early Hip Hop joint with a funky bassline.
@OD - 😲😳
Wicky Wacky had an awesome bass line
Thank you lol I was lookin to see if someone would mention this one. Sick sick bassline. Those early Fatback songs on the Perception label were as greasy and funky as can be. A raw Meters feel to them.
@@gtizzle7606 you reply and name drop The Meters, we should go for a beer
pdbass...Another Feeeelthy one
MARK ADAMS
Long Overdue... RIP Mark Adams