This week, 30 years ago, "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang became the first hip-hop single to enter the charts in the US or anywhere else, unofficially marking the beginning of rap and hip hop in the main stream. Thus, suburban white boys would never wear their pants the same again.

"Rapper's Delight" wasn't the first rap or hip hop single by any means. Hip hop started in New York City with guys like Positive Force, The Cold Crush Brothers and the Harlem World Crew, but it wasn't until Sugar Hill Gang broke into the charts that it quickly became a force to be reckoned with.

From Wikipedia, on the origins of the song:

In late 1979, Debbie Harry suggested that Nile Rodgers join her and Chris Stein at a hip hop event, which at the time was a communal space taken over by young kids and teenagers with boom box stereos, which would play various pieces of music that performers would break dance to. The main piece of music they would use was the break section of Chic's "Good Times," which Harry wanted Rodgers to appreciate. Rodgers experienced this event the first time himself at a high school in the Bronx. A few weeks later, Blondie, The Clash and Chic were playing a gig in New York at Bonds nightclub. When Chic started playing "Good Times" then rapper Fab Five Freddy and what were the members of the Sugarhill Gang jumped up on stage and started free styling with the band - Chic joined in and let them as Rodgers puts it "do their improvisation thing like poets, much like I would playing guitar with Prince." A few weeks later Rodgers was on the dance floor of New York club LaViticus and suddenly heard the DJ play a song which opened with Edwards bass line from Good Times. Rodgers approached the DJ who said he was playing a record he had just bought that day in Harlem. The song turned out to be an early version of "Rapper's Delight," which Rodgers noted also included a scratched version of the song's string section. Rodgers and Edwards threatened legal action over copyright, which resulted in them being credited as co-writers. Rodgers admitted that he was originally upset with the song, but would later declare it to be "one of [his] favorite songs of all time." He also stated that "as innovative and important as ‘Good Times’ was, ‘Rapper’s Delight’ was just as much, if not more so.

Listen to the story of the birth of the hip hop movement here at the BBC.