The origins of hip-hop as an art form are usually confined to New York City, specifically the Bronx. The subsequent story of how hip-hop and rap music were first placed on a record is not confined to the Bronx, but still mainly centers New York.
With that being said, while hip-hop and rap records were certainly new in the 1970s, it is crucial to note that they were not recorded in a vacuum within New York. In many instances, rap was brought into the fold of preexisting systems of recording black music within the city.
Rap music not only sampled genres like funk or soul, but was in some cases in close proximity to the artists and business people working within those fields, who also had a hand in developing rap's place in the music industry.
The impact of Paul Winley Records
In my previous article, I made reference to Winley Records, a Harlem based label that was home to doo-wop groups like the Paragons and the Jesters.
Winley was founded in 1956 by Paul Winley, a talent scout, songwriter, producer, and store and dance hall owner based in Harlem, working with an array of artists beginning I believe in the early 1950s, as stated in Frank Broughton’s 1998 interview with Winley, published by Red Bull in the 2018 article “From Doo-Wop to Hip-Hop: Paul Winley and the Invention of the Breakbeat Compilation.”
Early on, Winley wrote material for the Clovers, originally formed in his birthplace of Washington, D.C., and which featured his brother, Harold, as a bass vocalist.
Along with his other labels like Cyclone and Porwin, in the ‘50s and early ‘60s Winley Records worked with artists like the Quinns, the Collegians, and the Duponts, which featured Jerome Anthony Gourdine, or Little Anthony, as lead.
Vocal groups on Winley’s labels often recorded songs he wrote, co-wrote, or produced, according to The Complete Book of Doo-Wop (2009) by Dr. Anthony J. Gribin and Dr. Matthew M. Schiff.
Outside of doo-wop, artists Winley worked with included rhythm and blues icons like Big Joe Turner, tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons, and comedians such as Clay Tyson, who had releases on Winley Records in the early '60s before eventually joining King Records, the home of James Brown, becoming a feature in the James Brown Revue.
Winley Records had some sort of hiatus in the ‘60s and may have gone defunct for a time, but by the early ‘70s it would reemerge as Paul Winley Records, again releasing a plethora of music.
Aside from greatest hits albums for artists like Shirley Caesar and Mahalia Jackson, who weren't signed to the label, Winley released speeches from Malcolm X, who he saw frequently in the ‘60s as they both utilized the Audubon Ballroom.
Malcolm X’s Organization of Afro-American Unity used the Audubon Ballroom for weekly meetings, while Winley had been using it for 99 cent dances and shows, working with radio DJs like Frankie Crocker and Jocko Henderson. Winley’s use of the venue lessened after Malcolm X’s assassination there in February 1965.
One act that played at these dances was a band headed by Jimmy Castor, which would eventually become the funk group the Jimmy Castor Bunch. Like Winley, they have connections to doo-wop as Castor was a co-writer on 1956’s “I Promise to Remember” for Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers.
The band released a cover on their 1972 album It’s Just Begun, on which Castor explains his history with the song. In 1973, Paul Winley Records released The Jimmy Castor Story “From The Roots,” a collection of some of Castor’s songs from the ‘60s, I believe meant to showcase the evolution of his group in their formative years.
A group that had new music released on Paul Winley Records was Cymande, a funk band that formed in the United Kingdom, consisting of members from various Caribbean nations. Their album Arrival was released on the label in 1981, though the songs were first recorded around 1974, when the group disbanded, according to Jason Draper's 2009 review for Record Collector Magazine.
In hip-hop culture, the songs of Cymande and the Jimmy Castor Bunch, such as “Bra” or “It’s Just Begun,” are known as the source for legendary break beats and samples, something which Paul Winley was also aware of.
Beginning in 1979, Winley’s label began releasing Super Disco Brake’s, which were a prototype of the break beat compilation, released primarily in the early ’80s.
While the use of the songs on these albums was unauthorized, according to Winley the series began because he was unhappy with how record store owners were overpricing obscure 45" records
that were desperately sought after by early aspiring hip-hop DJs. If they bought these, the DJs had to have a 12" plate made from the 45" in a studio, a process that cost more money.
Super Disco Brake’s can be viewed as a sort of early precursor to Street Beat Record’s Ultimate Breaks and Beats compilations that became so widespread within hip-hop production in the latter half of the decade.
Songs included on the Super Disco Brake’s compilations were invaluable in the hip-hop community, including previously mentioned songs like “Bra” and “It’s Just Begun,” as well as “Rocket in the Pocket” by Cerrone and “Soul Makossa” by Manu Dibango.
"Soul Makossa" was also featured on the label as a single credited to the Mighty Tom Cats, another name for the Harlem Underground Band, the label's in-house band.
The Harlem Underground Band had their own popular break with 1973’s “Love Potion-Cheeba-Cheeba." It was sampled for songs like “Cheeba Cheeba” by Tone-Loc, produced by Matt Dike and Michael Ross.
The 1987 version of "Cheeba Cheeba" was the B-side to “On Fire,” while an updated version was featured on Tone-Loc's 1989 album Loc’ed After Dark, with vocals from N’Dea Davenport replacing the sample of the female vocalist on the Harlem Underground song.
The original female vocalist in question was Ann (Fleming) Winley, Paul’s wife, who also worked as a songwriter, producer, and artist for his label, I believe since the ‘50s.
It'd also be interesting to know if the title of “Love Potion-Cheeba-Cheeba” is connected to Winley’s familial links to the Clovers, who were known for their 1959 hit “Love Potion No. 9.”
An expanded version of “Love Potion-Cheeba-Cheeba,” entitled “Smokin Cheeba Cheeba,” was featured on the group’s 1976 album Harlem Underground. This project was marketed as an introduction for Ann Winley as the group’s vocalist, alongside featured artists such as Willis "Gator" Jackson on saxophone and George Benson on guitar.
Besides being a source for break beats, Paul Winley Records is also recognized as one of the early producers of original rap records.
In the “Underground to the Mainstream” episode of the docuseries Hip-Hop Evolution (2016), directed by Darby Wheeler, Dan Charnas, journalist and author of The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop (2011), explains that Sylvia Robinson’s interest in recording hip-hop and starting Sugar Hill Records began after seeing Lovebug Starski perform at her niece’s birthday party in Harlem.
In a similar fashion, Paul Winley’s interest in recording rap started because of his children. His son became a DJ named Gangster who was a peer of Grandmaster Flash and others.
Winley supported his son to the point that he let DJs practice at the store he bought on 125th Street. Winley also heard his daughters, Tanya and Paulette, reciting popular rhymes they heard at school and around the way.
It would not be surprising for Winley’s daughters to hear rhymes or see rap artists at school considering that many of the young rap acts of the time did or had gone to school together, and even on some occasions performed in school facilities.
Many artists knew each other from growing up in the same neighborhoods, and could be pretty easily located, such as it being common to go to the Bronx to see Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation, centered around the Bronx River Projects.
Ultimately, after hearing Tanya rapping for a time, and seeking to capitalize on rap’s popularity with black youth, Paul decided to take his daughter to the studio, where she recorded a single with the Harlem Underground Band called “Vicious Rap.”
Tanya used the name Sweet Tee, though she is not to be confused with the other Sweet Tee, or Toi Jackson, who was featured alongside British MC Leonie J on the rap mix of Davy DMX’s “The DMX Will Rock” in 1985, as well as being a member of the Glamour Girls and a solo artist, known for songs like 1986's “It’s My Beat” with DJ Jazzy Joyce.
While “Vicious Rap” featured Tanya, Paul would make another single with both of his daughters rapping, with Paulette taking on the name Paulette Tee. Their song would be called “Rhymin’ and Rappin’.” The music was again done by the Harlem Underground Band, while the B-side was a song called “Watch Dog,” which featured the same beat at it's foundation, although now Ann Winley was singing over it.
This was fairly common practice within the early era of rap music, as the first albums of artists like the Sugarhill Gang and Kurtis Blow were often split between rap party jams and more standard R&B ballads and dance numbers.
While I believe “Rhymin’ and Rappin’” was released in 1979, the year before “Vicious Rap” in 1980, Paul Winley describes the latter as being recorded first. “Rhymin’ and Rappin’” is framed as a follow up based on Paulette Tee’s opening lyric, which references both her sister and brother as already being MCs.
Paulette and Tanya Winley are among the first rappers, and female rappers in particular, to have records. Unlike pioneering groups such as the Mercedes Ladies, whose only appearance together on record seems to be an uncredited feature on Donald D.’s “Don’s Groove” in 1984, Paulette and Sweet Tee had their own records starring them.
The Winley sisters stand alongside others like the Philadelphia MC and radio DJ Lady B, whose single “To The Beat Y’all” was released on TEC Records in 1979, and MC Sha-Rock, a member of the Bronx based Funky 4 + 1, whose first single “Rappin and Rocking the House” was released on Enjoy Records that same year.
Outside of recording his daughters, Paul Winley also used his label to record other hip-hop artists he knew of, particularly Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation.
Winley released the first Afrika Bambaataa singles I know of in 1980, again featuring the Harlem Underground Band. The first was “Zulu Nation Throw Down,” essentially a performance of the Cosmic Force, consisting of the Zulu Nation MCs Lisa Lee, Chubby Chub, Ice Ice, and Ikey C.
While I don't think Bambaataa himself is on the record, the Cosmic Force shout him out along with Jazzy Jay, another Zulu Nation DJ that Winley says came to his store in Harlem amongst a large Zulu Nation entourage, including Kool DJ Red Alert.
Their second single was “Zulu Nation Throw Down Volume 2,” featuring a different group of Zulu Nation MCs called the Soul Sonic Force, consisting of Mr. Biggs, Pow Wow, and MC G.L.O.B.E.
Even after 1982, when Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force recorded their foundational electro hit "Planet Rock" for Tommy Boy Records, they still had at least one more release through Paul Winley.
“Death Mix," released on Winley's label in 1983, was a live tape made by the Zulu Nation of a performance of theirs in the Bronx, I believe at the Bronx River Community Center. It is a great showcase of the group's live presence, showcasing their simultaneous prowess as MCs and DJs.
Though these examples are brief, I hope I have shown at least a narrow view through Paul Winley of how doo-wop, soul, funk, rap, and electro were interweaved more closely than one may think in New York’s recording industry.