hypersongs

ESG

A family band from the South Bronx led by Renee Scroggins, whose spare funk on the 1981 debut EP, with "Moody" and "UFO", became one of the most sampled records in hip-hop.

The Moore Projects to 99 Records

ESG stands for Emerald, Sapphire and Gold: emerald and sapphire are the birthstones of Renee and Valerie Scroggins, and gold refers to a record certification. The sisters grew up in the Moore Projects on Jackson Avenue in the Bronx, and their mother, Helen Scroggins, bought them instruments and entered them in talent contests to keep them off the streets. Their sound drew on Latin music and street percussion. Wikipedia dates the formation to 1977 and the Quietus to 1978. The original line-up was Renee on vocals and guitar, Valerie on drums, Deborah on bass, Marie on congas and vocals and Tito Libran on congas.

Ed Bahlman, who ran 99 Records in Greenwich Village, saw them at a talent show and became their unofficial manager and label. Tony Wilson of Factory approached them after a show at Hurrah, and they recorded with Martin Hannett in 1980. On December 3, 1980 Bahlman recorded their Hurrah performance, which became the live B-side of the debut EP, released in 1981 by 99 with Factory. ESG Says Dance to the Beat of Moody (1982, produced by Bahlman) and Come Away with ESG (1983) followed. Trouser Press called the latter bouncy funk instead of funk pretensions.

After 1985

Deborah left in 1984, and the band was inactive after 1985 until 1991, which brought a compilation, and then Sample Credits Don't Pay Our Bills (1992), ESG Live! (1995, recorded at Club USA and WFMU), A South Bronx Story (2000, Soul Jazz), Step Off (2002), Keep on Moving (2006), A South Bronx Story 2 (2007), Dance to the Best of ESG (2010), Closure (2012) and What More Can You Take? (2017), billed as the last studio album. Renee's and Valerie's daughters, Nicole on bass and Chistelle on guitar, joined around 2000, though a Fordham oral history dates it to 1995. A Quietus piece notes a long-running dispute with a rapper using the ESG name, and Renee trademarked it.

"UFO" has been sampled in more than 560 songs, by users including Wu-Tang Clan, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Big Daddy Kane, TLC, Gang Starr, Tricky and MF Doom, and the band received no sampling royalties for about twenty years. James Murphy and Karen O have cited them. Cheri Percy's book on Come Away with ESG was published in the 33 1/3 series by Bloomsbury in May 2023.

Albums

  • ESG 1981 · ep · 99 Records / Factory

    Their 1981 debut EP: six songs, five studio tracks produced by Martin Hannett and a live closer produced by Ed Bahlman.

Songs

  • Moody ESG · 1981

    Recorded in one take in the first Hannett session, a club hit in New York and London and a Paradise Garage favorite.

Sources

  1. ESG (band), Wikipedia
  2. ESG (EP), Wikipedia
  3. Renee Scroggins oral history, Fordham University (2006)
  4. ESG, Trouser Press