Spoonie Gee

• 1. Introduction

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  Spoonie Gee is one of the earliest rap artists in history, and one of the very few to have released rap records in the 1970s. He has been credited with originating the term hip hop itself. Born Gabriel Jackson on the 27th of May 1963 in Harlem, New York City, his path from a child eating only with a spoon to becoming a founding figure of an entire genre is as unlikely as it is formative. His music carried jailhouse references and a hard-edged bravado long before those themes had a name. Critics and peers would later describe him as the original gangsta rapper. How did a boy from Harlem, shaped by loss and raised partly in a record producer's apartment, help build the foundation of one of the most influential musical movements of the twentieth century? And why, despite that legacy, does his name remain less familiar than those who followed in his footsteps?

• 2. Harlem Roots

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  Jackson earned his nickname as a young child in Harlem because the spoon was the only utensil he would eat with. That childhood quirk became the stage name that would appear on records before most people knew what rap music was. When Jackson was twelve years old, his mother died, and he went to live with his uncle, the record producer Bobby Robinson. Robinson's apartment became an informal studio in spirit, the place where Jackson began to practice rapping in earnest.

  Robinson ran Enjoy! Records, and his home and record store were nodes in Harlem's music world. It was through that connection that Jackson's first break arrived. A man named Peter Brown visited Robinson's record store, mentioned he was looking to make a rap record, and someone put Spoonie's name forward. That casual recommendation led directly to his debut recording, 'Spoonin' Rap', released in 1979 on Brown's Sound of New York, USA imprint. The record featured jailhouse references applied over vocals treated with echo, a sparse and striking combination that planted seeds for what gangsta rap would later harvest.

• 3. The Treacherous Three

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  Jackson was a founding member of the Treacherous Three, alongside L.A. Sunshine and Kool Moe Dee. That group would go on to become one of the most respected acts in early hip hop. His 'Love Rap', released on Enjoy! Records, appeared on the B-side of the Treacherous Three's 'New Rap Language', the two records sharing a single piece of vinyl. On 'Love Rap', his brother Pooche Costello accompanied him on congas, a familial collaboration that gave the track a live, percussive pulse. That song earned Jackson an early nickname: The Love Rapper.

  When Jackson left the group to pursue a solo path, the Treacherous Three added Special K to fill out the lineup. Despite his departure, Jackson maintained ties with the group and played a role in securing their first record deal. He returned for a period, during which the group was billed as Spoonie Gee and the Treacherous Three, before he went solo once again. In 2008, 'Love Rap' was ranked number 65 on VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop.

• 4. Sugar Hill and Beyond

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  After his time with Enjoy!, Jackson moved to Sugar Hill Records, where he recorded further hits. 'Spoonie's Back' was one release from that period; another was 'Monster Jam', a collaboration with the Sequence. Both tracks extended his reach and his reputation as a consistent, hard-working rapper at a time when the genre's commercial framework was still being invented.

  By 1985, Jackson had moved again, this time to Aaron Fuchs' Tuff City label, where the majority of his later recordings would appear. One of those records, 'That's My Style', was a pointed attack on Schoolly D, whom Jackson accused of copying his style. The move to Tuff City also coincided with a different kind of work: by the mid-1980s, Jackson was employed at a rehabilitation centre for people with learning disabilities. His 1987 debut album, The Godfather of Rap, was produced by Marley Marl and Teddy Riley and released on Tuff City. His career picked up again with that record, only to be interrupted by several spells in prison in the years that followed.

• 5. Legacy and Later Work

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  In the mid-1990s, a compilation of Jackson's work titled Godfather of Hip Hop appeared on the Ol' Skool Flava label, gathering his recordings for a new generation of listeners. A decade later, in the mid-2000s, he returned with a new EP called The Boss Is Back. The title carried a quiet self-assurance that had characterized his work from the very beginning.

  His credit as someone who helped originate the term hip hop, and whose jailhouse-tinged lyrics were among the first precursors of gangsta rap, has never been formalized in the way that later artists' legacies have been. In 1999, Moby featured him on 'Bodyrock', released on the Mute and V2 labels, bringing his voice into a new musical context entirely. That collaboration, decades after 'Spoonin' Rap', underscored just how long and winding a career Jackson had navigated since his uncle Bobby Robinson's apartment in Harlem.