User talk:92.236.105.98

Street Talk (Madam Rapper) was one of the most influential songs that came out of the early hip hop era. Written in 1979 by Producer/Director/Composer Teddy Hayes (producing under the name of T Osaze) along with producer James Mtume (of Juicy Fruit fame) producing under the name The Apostle.

The hook of the song was the instrumental break beat that consisted of a one minute and ten second percussion break that DJ’s and rappers would later use as samples in over 100 hip hop grooves in the years to come. At the time the recording was made samples were not being used as part of records.

The person most responsible for the break beat was Justice Butler who was the drummer of the band. He had the idea of putting what became the classic breakbeat into the middle of the song.

Hayes admits that at first he was not convinced by the break beat idea, because something as dramatic as dropping a percussion beat right into the middle of a song had never been done before. But believing that the drummer(the youngest band member) had a better feeling of what people were dancing to on the street, he eventually agreed and joined in with a cowbell, as all the band members participated in creating the break beat in one live take standing around the studio microphone.

Teddy Hayes performed the male rap voice on the track. The female rapping voice was Diane Sorrel someone who had never rapped before but was hired in for the vocal session as a backing singer. The song was recorded at the legendary Quad Studios in New York in a two-hour session and engineered by studio owner Lou Gonzales. Hayes returned at a later date with producer James Mtume to work on vocals with the help of vocalist Tawatha Agee (credited on the record as The Mighty T.)

The band name “The Funky Constellation, was taken from a track on Mtume’s first Album on CBS titled “In Search of the Rainbow Seekers” The Funky Constellation band consisted of Paul Chaplin(piano), Justice Butler (drums), Moises Torres, (Guitar), Eric Said (Bass), Walter (Bertie) Dixon (Trombone) and Teddy Hayes (producer and vocals) Since there was no commercial radio play in those days for this kind of music as well as no distribution of what was called “break beat” music at the time, Hayes personally financed the initial pressings of the 12-inch records using a pressing plant in Queens and originally distributed it himself by filling a laundry cart and selling the records directly to the record shops for cash. The song began to sell beyond his capacity to finance it and he turned it over to Rota Records, a local Brooklyn distributor. The song has became a hip hop classic and still sells to this day as part of DJ break beat compilations.

One of the things Teddy Hayes cited in an interview for a UK radio station was that after hearing the record, hip hop mogul Russell Simmons (who was just starting out in the music business as a club promoter in those days) contacted him and took him to a night club in the Bronx called “Disco Fever” which was a legendary rap club that and spawned some of the first pioneers of hip hop like Grandmaster Flash, Run DMC ,Curtis Blow, and became the location for the first big rap based film “Krush Groove” in 1985.