The Message

"The Message" was released on July 1, 1982 on Sugar Hill, 7:10 with an instrumental on the B-side, and recorded in 1982 at Sweet Mountain Studio. The song page credits Edward G. Fletcher, Melle Mel, Clifton Chase and Sylvia Robinson as writers and Fletcher and Robinson as producers, while the album page credits Jigsaw Productions and Robinson. Duke Bootee and Melle Mel wrote it in 1980 in response to that year's New York City transit strike, which the lyrics mention; it is a piece of commentary on inner-city poverty that follows a child drawn into crime and ends in a jail cell, closing with a skit of the group being arrested. Melle Mel is the only group member on it apart from background vocals at the end.

Melle Mel said in a Fresh Air interview, dated 1992 by the archive and 2007 by Wikipedia, that the group was used to party raps and did not want to record it, that he agreed, saying if this is the record we are going to do then I will just do it, and that he was surprised when club crowds responded to it right after "Planet Rock". A Denver Post item reached only through search says Duke Bootee wrote most of the lyrics and melody in 1980 as a Sugar Hill studio musician, and that Robinson had Melle Mel's "a child is born" verse, written as a teenager for the 1979 "Superrapin'", added at the end.

It reached number 62 on the Hot 100, four on the Black Singles chart, number eight in the UK, two in New Zealand, six on the Dutch Top 40 and 21 in Australia. NME made it its number one track of 1982, Rolling Stone ranked it 51st in 2004 and later called it the greatest hip-hop song, VH1 placed it fifth of its 100 greatest hip-hop songs, and it was the first hip-hop recording in the National Recording Registry, in 2002. Sinbad, Ice Cube, Puff Daddy and Coi Leray used its rhythm track, Phil Collins's laugh on Genesis's "Mama" was inspired by it, and Hamilton refers to it in "Cabinet Battle #1". Die Fantastischen Vier made "The Message '95" and Melle Mel released "M3, The New Message" in 2007. Which version our upload is has not been established.