Poetry and spoken word were alive and well in the 1960s, but \u201crap music\u201d as we know it today wouldn\u2019t become popularized until the end of the decade. However, a one-hit wonder by a Pittsburgh-based rock band named The Jaggerz offered an uncanny foreshadowing of the genre and its terminology with their 1970 hit, \u201cThe Rapper\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Jaggerz released \u201cThe Rapper\u201d on their second album, We Went To Different Schools Together. The album wasn\u2019t technically a commercial success, but some singles did well. In addition to \u201cThe Rapper\u201d, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Record World Singles chart, \u201cI Call My Baby Candy\u201d saw moderate success when it broke into the Hot 100 at No. 75.<\/p>\n
The harmony-rich, rock-forward groove certainly doesn\u2019t evoke images of rap music\u2014even its earliest iterations\u2014in the traditional sense. Still, it\u2019s interesting to see the term \u201crapper\u201d pop up on the Billboard charts before tracks like \u201cRapper\u2019s Delight\u201d<\/a> came along and really defined the genre. So, what kind of rapper were The Jaggerz talking about?<\/p>\n \u201cThe Rapper\u201d Was Referencing a Different Slang Term of the Late 1960s<\/p>\n Today, we know a rapper to be someone who raps, as in, performs rhythmic (and sometimes melodic) spoken word over music. But in the late 1960s, to \u201crap\u201d was slang for \u201ctalking,\u201d especially in a flirty way.<\/p>\n According to SongFacts<\/a>, The Jaggerz vocalist Donnie Iris<\/a> explained that he wrote the song after \u201cwatching people in nightclubs, in all the bars that we were playing. You\u2019d see these dudes go over and start rapping to chickens. In those days, we did call it \u2018rappin\u2019, and they were just basically picking chicks up and hitting on them. That\u2019s how the song came about, just watching these guys and all their moves.\u201d<\/p>\n Although \u201cThe Rapper\u201d spent some time high on the charts in the spring of 1970, by year\u2019s end, the song had dropped to No. 45 on the Hot 100. In the years that followed, The Jaggerz continued to release new music. They underwent several personnel changes, with many of the members breaking off to do other musical projects.<\/p>\n