These days, few songs get to #1 unless they're at least rap-adjacent. But for nearly its first decade of existence, rap music came nowhere near the pop charts. For a long time, it never even came ...

A year after the Sugarhill Gang released “Rapper’s Delight” in 1979, Blondie recorded “Rapture,” the first major hip-hop hit to use original music rather than sampling other artists’ beats. Released ...