Some would say it's the Sugar Hill Gang or even Kurtis Blow, but the oldies would say it's someone like Cab Calloway with his tongue twisting ad libs to Minnie The Moocher. Since then, rap has become a lucrative market in the music industry. Who deserves the credit, and what path do you see it going in the future?

Probably traditions from Africa like "playing the dozens", chants, trickster (ie Brer Rabbit) stories, etc.

Well because there are so many different styles of rap music, it is hard to say.

yahoo answers

ask deb.com:

[Edited 5/18/11 13:54pm]

^^^Little Richard, Johnny Guitar Watson, and other older singers claimed to have created the 1st rap records.

Nobody set the groundwork for this bullshit that it became. Nobody back then dreamed that they would eventually turn the genre into a bunch of rhythmless bullshit. Those early rap records were about boasting who was the baddest MC, DJ, lover, or whatever else they wanted to boast about. There were also mainly about fun and partying, not a bunch of bullshit. Hell, they were party records made for parties. And most importantly, they were funky. They came from funk and disco and were played right alongside funk and disco records on the radio, at the clubs, and at the parties. Hell, one of the first rap records was made by Fatback, which was a funk band and another one was made by The Sugarhill Gang which was based from a disco record. When the rap records got away from being funk or disco records themselves, that's when the genre turned into "shit hop".

Here's some earlier rap tunes:

http://prince.org/msg/8/351436

[Edited 5/18/11 14:45pm]

Beautifulstarr123 said:

Some would say it's the Sugar Hill Gang or even Kurtis Blow, but the oldies would say it's someone like Cab Calloway with his tongue twisting ad libs to Minnie The Moocher. Since then, rap has become a lucrative market in the music industry. Who deserves the credit, and what path do you see it going in the future?

Rap is decades and centuries older than hip-hop culture itself. Only poetry is older than rap.

vainandy said:

Nobody set the groundwork for this bullshit that it became. Nobody back then dreamed that they would eventually turn the genre into a bunch of rhythmless bullshit. Those early rap records were about boasting who was the baddest MC, DJ, lover, or whatever else they wanted to boast about. There were also mainly about fun and partying, not a bunch of bullshit. Hell, they were party records made for parties. And most importantly, they were funky. They came from funk and disco and were played right alongside funk and disco records on the radio, at the clubs, and at the parties. Hell, one of the first rap records was made by Fatback, which was a funk band and another one was made by The Sugarhill Gang which was based from a disco record. When the rap records got away from being funk or disco records themselves, that's when the genre turned into "shit hop".

Funk did indeed help establish rap. It got alot of credit for establishing it too. James Brown is sort of a pioneer to the genre also with his lyrics and rhymes..which half the time were not actual singing on the tune, but saying what he wanted to say. Not to also forget the music he made is still being sample by rappers to this very day.

Once u find out...............let me know.

I'm going 2 kick his ass.

TonyVanDam said:

Rap is decades and centuries older than hip-hop culture itself. Only poetry is older than rap.

With its combination of rhythmic speak-singing over a riff with a hot chorus, the use of non-musical sound effect samples, and its open hostility to the authorities, I think you could make a case for CW McCall's "Convoy."

bobzilla77 said:

With its combination of rhythmic speak-singing over a riff with a hot chorus, the use of non-musical sound effect samples, and its open hostility to the authorities, I think you could make a case for CW McCall's "Convoy."

Songs like The Name Game & Here Comes The Judge beats Convoy by a decade. Sound effects on records existed long before Convoy too. Listen to Good Morning Good Morning by The Beatles, Chain Gang by Sam Cooke, or old blues records with train sounds.