Tag Archives: The Message

50 Years of Hip Hop Album Review: 8th Wonder, The Message

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Last year was the 50th anniversary of hip hop, And in honor of this anniversary, the idea bloomed in my mind that I should review the top 50 albums of that 50 years. As I crunched together a list from various sources, 50 proved to be too restrictive- many of the classics were getting squeezed out. So, to make a little more room, I opted for 100 albums, two for each of hip hop’s 50 years.

For its formative years, hip hop was a live entertainment form, with the first recorded songs not emerging until 1979, and the first albums in 1980. So my review will cover 1980-2023, with 50 posts of two albums each. The only ground rule I made for myself (besides looking for 2×50, aka 100, albums that were widely well-regarded) was that I had to have at least one from each year. As you’ll see by and by, some years get multiple albums, but since we have 100 spots for 43 years, it tends to all work out.

And with that, let’s embark on our next installment!

The Sugarhill Gang, 8th Wonder (1981)– The critics were not too kind to this album. So what, you might ask, is it doing here? One thing to keep in mind is just how in its infancy the genre was at this point. In 1980-82 there were a total of eight hip hop albums released. Just eight! So we’ve actually reviewed half of all the hip hop albums then in existence in this post and the previous one. The other relevant fact is that the critics are blue meanies who can kiss my tuchus. I find the sound here to be wall to wall fun! As with their debut album which we reviewed last time, there’s a lot here that isn’t exactly hip hop. On the other hand, it’s not exactly not. The funk/soul/disco sounds here have much more sizzle compared to last time, and are freely combined with rap, instruments and mixing and drum machines blending back and forth track by track. This is the electro genre being born. And , while there are some cringy things about “Apache” from a modern cultural sensitivity point of view, sonically it’s brilliant sampling of the classic 60s instrumental, and the album contains maybe the first honest to goodness rap battle, “Showdown” which has Sugarhill facing off with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. All-in-all, a worthy time capsule of hip hop in its early days.

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, The Message (1982)- If the Sugarhill Gang was a bit of a pre-fab group, Grandmaster Flash was the real deal- he was a leading DJ, foundational in creating cutting and scratching and had his own group going before signing on to Sugarhill Records. That being said, the opening track, “She’s Fresh” has a lot in common with 8th Wonder, in the sense that it’s a song that could serve as an early 80s soul/funk number, but is also rap- once again, it’s the electro style being born. And this carries through several subsequent tracks. There is of course the masterful “The Message”, which is often considered the birth of the genre’s capacity for social realism and political consciousness. The standard story is that the group was reluctant to include it on the album because of the serious turn, but I observe that “It’s a Shame” has a social focus as well, and “You Are” does a straight-up religious theme, so they don’t seem to have been shy about tackling substance. There’s also some great sampling of “Genius of Love” and “It’s A Shame” along the way, brilliant cutting and mixing of a dozen records on “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheel of Steel” (from the UK version of the album) and a track that’s a touching tribute to Stevie Wonder. All the way around, this album well deserves its classic status.

If you’re curious about the sources I used to compile my list, you can check them out here:

And if you want to catch up on the previous installments, you can find them here!

  1. Sugarhill Gang (1980)/Kurtis Blow (1980)