A handful of groups did albums, but those releases were arguably not rap albums. That said, between the years of 1979-85, rap was focused on the 12” single. It took some time for the industry to fully embrace the idea that rap could infiltrate the mainstream and an even longer time to trust that it had staying power.

And while that may have been true for the majority of very early rap releases, the few that snuck through and became hits were largely unexpected and for the most part, poorly documented. One of the problems with determining sales and radio charting stats on the earliest rap records is that the industry at large didn’t believe that these records were going to sell enough to justify paying attention to. And with that, the rap record trend caught on pretty fast. However, “Rapper’s Delight” sold enough records and received enough radio play that some of those non-believers who were in positions of power - and surely some believers as well - to jump at the opportunity to at least make some fast cash. Early reports suggested rap would be a fad that would likely burn out as quick, if not quicker than disco. Plus, within the industry, many musicians, music executives, media outlets and parents in general considered rap to be noise, which was being made by kids with no musical training, who were just talking to music. Within the hip-hop culture where the music emerged, there was a sense of dismissal by many aimed at the first two rap records, as they were recorded by artists that weren’t recognized as being part of the heart and/or start of the culture Fatback Band “King Tim III” and Sugarhill Gang “Rapper’s Delight” respectively. As the story goes, in 1979 when rap music first became a marketable commodity via the 12” single, there was arguably as much resistance as there was celebration.

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