The first rap record is generally acknowledged to have been "King Tim III" by the Fatback Band in 1979, but there were many predecessors and early indicators of the possibilities of chanting rhymes over a musical background. Pure hip hop emerged from 1970s block parties in New York City. The block parties were closely related to sound systems in Jamaica, which were large parties, originally outdoors, thrown by owners of loud and expensive stereo equipment which they could share with the community. Rap emerged from block parties after DJs isolated percussion breaks and began speaking over the beats; in Jamaica, a similar vocal style called dub developed from the same isolated and elongated percussion breaks.

Earlier styles that contributed to rap

West African griots, wandering poets and "praise-singers"

Christian music, as well as certain Protestant preachers' sermons

Pinetop Smith's "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" (1929) in which the "girl with the red dress on" was first told "when I say stop, don't you move a peg, when I say go I want you to shake your leg".

Rosalind Russell, "Swing" (1953), a "patter song" written by Leonard Bernstein for the Broadway musical Wonderful Town that's just full of rappish talk -- "Old man Mose, kicked that bucket, down in the well, well, well, well ... Fish, it's my favorite dish"

Individual performances that prefigured rap

Bo Diddley's "Who do you love?", (1956) a maniacal boast, "I got a tombstone hand and graveyard mind, just 22 and I don't mind dyin'".

Bob Dylan "Subterranean Homesick Blues 1960s vocal exercise.

Champion Jack Dupree's "Big Leg Emma's" (1956), rhyming tale of a barrelhouse raid over slow blues piano: "I went down to Big Leg Emma's house, to get myself a drink of gin, but before I got in the house good, the law walked in".

Some topics in this essay:
York City, Scott-Heron Poets, West African, Humanoid Boogie, Bo Diddley's, Leg Emma's, Fatback Band, XIV They're, Signifying Monkey, Wonderful Town, block parties, percussion breaks, rhymed tales, leg emma's,