Commercial Success
By the late 1970s, as hip-hop continued to flourish throughout New York City and neighboring boroughs, it started to attract the attention of music entrepreneurs. Witnessing its commercial potential and youth appeal, they sought dancehall spaces to rent, in which they would hire a DJ with MCs to host dance events. Additionally, local neighborhood clubs hosted hip-hop arts, incorporating all four elements of hip-hop culture, on an occasional basis. Harlem World, Dixie Club, the Funhouse, and Club 371 were among the most popular. But the club that featured hip-hop on a nightly basis was Disco Fever, established by Sal Abbietello in the Bronx area in 1976. Soon, the Fever, as it was known, was to become a magnet for music entrepreneurs seeking to sign music talents. In the wake of the success of Disco Fever, others began hosting hip-hop entertainment. Kool Lady Blue, for example, an English punk clothing entrepreneur-turned-hip-hop promoter, began hosting hip-hop nights at the famed Roxy Club (a former skating rink) and Negril in Lower Manhattan during the early 1980s.
DJs often performed nonstop music at neighborhood block parties and basketball courts. Similar to that of their Jamaican predecessors, they recited catchy phrases to motivate their audiences to dance. In due course, DJing became quite competitive, making room for the "rhymin' MC," who took on the responsibility of reciting phrases in rhyming couplets to the dance crowd. In a continued effort to combat gang violence, some DJs-turned-MCs created catchy phrases. One such was Lovebug Starski of the South Bronx, who recited to his audience, "hip-hop, you don't stop that makes your body rock." And it was Afrika Bambaataa who extracted the term "hip-hop" from Lovebug Starski's words and designated it to embrace what were to become the four elements of hip-hop culture.
Other well-known MCs were Grandmaster Caz of the Cold Crush Brothers, Sweet G, Kurtis Blow (mentioned earlier with his song " The Breaks "), and Junebug. DJ Hollywood, known for his wit and skill at extemporaneous or freestyle rhyming, was also extremely popular, and others widely sampled his rhymes. MCs like these were the first to sell their raps over DJ beats as mixtapes, then on eight-track tapes, in their communities at affordable prices.
When entrepreneurs outside of the tradition moved to commercialize hip-hop, they separated hip-hop's four elements. Their interest shifted from the street aesthetic of hip-hop to the aspect they judged to be the most marketable and the best known to the average music consumer-the upfront MC backed by singers with musical accompaniment. The "rhymin' MC" familiar to hip-hoppers would soon be called the "rappin' DJ," and the music would be popularly known as rap music. Early music entrepreneurs interested in recording rap music were often veterans of rhythm and blues or small record shop owners-turned-independent record producers such as Bobby Robinson of Enjoy Records, Paul Winley of Winley Records, and Sylvia and Joseph Robinson of Sugarhill Records. The latter was the most successful of these independent record labels, producing hip-hop's first successful commercial recording, " Rapper's Delight" (1979), which introduced a trio of MCs assembled in New Jersey called the Sugar Hill Gang.
