Hip-hop pioneers and NJ natives the Sugarhill Gang will perform a hometown show at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, N.J., on January 10. The influential group, featuring original members “Wonder Mike” Wright and Guy “Master Gee” O’Brien, alongside Henry “Hen Dogg” Williams, who has been with the group since 2005, will stop at the theater as part of the “Eras of Hip-Hop Tour,” with performances in Atlantic City, N.J.; Los Angeles, Calif.;, and Reading, Penn., scheduled in the coming months.
The Sugarhill Gang, formed by Wright, O’Brien, and the late Henry “Big Bank Hank” Jackson, helped usher in a new cultural revolution, popularizing hip-hop and becoming the first rap group to land a Top 40 hit on the “Billboard” charts with their 1979 single, “Rapper’s Delight.” The funky anthem that interpolated Chic’s rendition of “Good Times” (which sparked a lawsuit between the group and Nile Rogers that was later settled) introduced the world to an art form that persists today, and solidified the place of several iconic lines like “I said a hip-hop, the hippie, the hippie, To the hip, hip-hop, and you don’t stop the rockin’,” into the annals of musical history.
Sugarhill Gang performing their hit “Rapper’s Delight” at NJPAC on July 20, 2023. The influential hip-hop group will perform in their hometown at Bergen PAC on January 10. (Credit: Johnny Knollwood )
The trio disbanded by the mid-1980s, and the 1990s marked a period of public confusion and legal battles between the group and former manager Sylvia Robinson, who formed her own version of the group, trademarking the names of the performers in the process. Wright and O’Brien re-acquired the rights after a lengthy court process and released “Lala Song,” their first single as the reformed Sugar Hill Gang, with Hen Dogg in 2009.
The group is slated to perform “Rapper’s Delight” among a slew of other hits, including 1981’s “Apache.”
For more information and tickets for the Sugarhill Gang’s return home, go to bergenpac.org.