Funky 4 + 1

• 1. Introduction

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  Funky 4 + 1 was an American hip hop group from the Bronx, New York, and they hold a cluster of firsts that no other act can claim. They were the first hip hop group to sign a record deal. They were the first to sell their records commercially. And on the 14th of February 1981, Valentine's Day, they became the first hip hop act to perform live on national television. That performance, on Saturday Night Live, was hosted by Debbie Harry of Blondie. It lasted only a few minutes. It changed what hip hop looked like to the rest of the country forever. What made this group remarkable was not just the milestone moments but what they built between those moments: a roster of MCs trading lines with precision, a record that a major music critic would call the best song of an entire decade, and a woman at the center of it all who a Village Voice reviewer said needed no variation. The questions worth sitting with are who these people were, how they got there, and why the world almost forgot them.

• 2. Pioneers of the Record

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  The group's signature record, "That's the Joint," arrived in 1980. Its instrumental track was carried by Sugarhill bassist Doug Wimbish, and music critic Robert Christgau of The Village Voice found that track so compelling he listened to it alone on its B-side version before ever engaging with the vocals. Christgau gave the single an A rating in his 1981 review. He wrote that the rapping it showcased was "the peak of the form, not verbally" but rhythmically, with quick tradeoffs and clamorous breaks varying the steady-flow rhyming of the individual MCs. The record was built partly on an interpolation of "Rescue Me" by A Taste of Honey. Christgau later named "That's the Joint" the best song of the 1980s, a designation that placed it above every rock, pop, and soul record released across that decade. In 2008, VH1 ranked the song number 41 on their list of the 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop.

• 3. Sha-Rock and the First Woman MC

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  Sharon Green, known as Sha-Rock, was born into a group that had never had a woman MC, because no hip hop group had. She was the first. Christgau singled her out by name in his review, calling her "Miss Plus One herself" and asking rhetorically who needed variation when she took the mic. Her presence in the group was not incidental. The "+1" in the group's name referred directly to her. She joined in 1977 alongside K.K. Rockwell, Keith Caesar, Rahiem, and D.J. Breakout, forming the core of what would become one of the Bronx's most historically significant crews. Her tenure with the group ran through 1983, the same year the group's final member, Jazzy Jeff, also departed.

• 4. The SNL Moment

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  Debbie Harry hosted Saturday Night Live on the 14th of February 1981, and she made room for Funky 4 + 1 to perform. No hip hop group had been on national television before. The appearance was not the end of the relationship between Harry and the group. She subsequently asked them to open for Blondie on tour, an offer that would have taken hip hop into arenas in front of audiences that had never encountered it. Sylvia Robinson, the CEO of Sugarhill Records, refused to allow it. Robinson's decision kept the group tethered to the label's own interests, and the tour never happened. The group recorded their final single, "Feel It (The Mexican)," in 1983, the same year Sha-Rock and Keith Keith completed their tenure.

• 5. Members and Origins

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  The group took shape in 1977 with an original lineup that included K.K. Rockwell, Keith Caesar, Rahiem, Sha-Rock, D.J. Breakout, and D.J. Baron. Rahiem's full name was Guy Todd Williams. He left in 1979, the same year Lil' Rodney C and Jazzy Jeff joined. D.J. Baron, whose full name was Baron Chappell, departed in 1980. Two of the group's members, Rodney Cee and Rahiem, later performed together as a duo called Double Trouble, appearing notably in the film Wild Style. The group's earliest release on record was "Rappin' and Rocking the House" in 1979. Their compilation work eventually appeared on labels including Vogue/Sugar Hill, P-Vine, and Sequel, with the 1983 release Crash Crew Meets Funky Four appearing on LP.