Go-Go 2
Chuck Brown did not perform in a vacuum. By the late 1970s, other seminal go-go groups such as Rare Essence, E.U. Experience Unlimited, and Trouble Funk played around Washington, DC. Within a few years, the number of venues for these nascent go-go bands had also expanded in response to its local popularity. In Palmer Parker, Maryland, the Club Le Baron presented groups to an eager audience. The Trouble Band and Show (later known as Trouble Funk) sometimes played at Anacostia Park and learned some of their earliest performance practices from Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers.
Around this time, industry veterans Sylvia and Joe Robinson founded Sugar Hill Records in 1979 in Englewood, New Jersey, as a label for rap music-a new genre at the time. The brand became influential during the 1980s after initial success with " Rapper's Delight " (1979) by the pioneering rap group The Sugarhill Gang. "Rapper's Delight" was the first Top 40 single in the genre that would later be called hip-hop. Other Sugar Hill Records hits that showed the potential of hip-hop for conveying social commentary include "nd Jam" (1975) and later with the dance hits " The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" (1981)-a fifteen-minute epic that sampled sections of Chic's " Good Times" (1979) and showcased the new sound of scratching created by manually moving a record back and forth under the record player's needle-and " The Message" (1982) by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, a heartfelt account of life in the ghetto.
The Robinsons heard Trouble Funk in 1979 and were impressed by the band's strong local following, energy, and unique repertoire. The group soon made their first album in 1982, Drop the Bomb. Two of their most famous recordings featuring call-and-response between the lead vocalist and band members are " Drop the Bomb" and " Hey Fellas ." Regarding the instrumental accompaniment, percussion instruments such as congas, timbales, cowbell, and drums are most salient, accompanied by brass and woodwinds, synthesizers, guitar, bass, and guitar hear. The LP sold very well locally but garnered few sales and little airplay outside Washington, DC.