From “Rapper’s Delight”:
“Check it out, I’m the C-A-S-A, the N-O-V-A,
And the rest is F-L-Y,
You see I go by the code of the doctor of the mix,
And these reasons I’ll tell you why.
So I rocked some vicious rhymes like I never did before
She said, ‘Damn, fly guy, I’m in love with you
The Casanova legend must have been true.’ ”
Thirty-five years ago, the Sugar Hill Gang from Englewood, NJ, burst onto the scene with “Rapper’s Delight” and introduced the world to the Bronx-born music known as hip-hop. It was the first of its kind to break the Billboard Top 40 and sold more than 5 million copies.
On Sunday, the now-classic song will be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame — a musical milestone — but the alleged writer of the song won’t be at the show, because he never got credit. Now, he’s pursuing a lawsuit to claim what he says he’s owed.
Pioneering rapper Grandmaster Caz (a k a Curtis Brown) has long claimed that his former manager, future Sugar Hill member Big Bank Hank (nee Henry Jackson), stole the lyrics for the legendary song.
“It’s been an ongoing thing to get credit. But I’m gonna take another shot at it now,” Caz, who now runs the hip-hop-themed Hush Tours in New York, tells The Post. “My people contacted the Grammys and they said, ‘Well, it’s not like the song is gonna be on the Grammys. They just send out a certificate saying it’s been inducted.’ But I’d like a certificate, you know? If this is about the song itself, then it’s about the writers — and though I may not have been credited, I’m still the writer!”
In the 1970s, Caz was emceeing events in The Bronx and rapping with the band he founded, the Cold Crush Brothers, under his moniker Casanova Fly. Early that year, he met Big Bank Hank, who offered to be his manager.
“Hank took out a loan from his parents so we could reinforce our sound system,” Caz said. “To pay back the loan, he got a job at a pizza shop.”
It was at the Crispy Crust Pizza shop in Englewood, where he got his break, in 1979. Music executive Sylvia Robinson came in, heard him rapping Caz’s song (what would become “Rapper’s Delight”) and signed him to her Sugar Hill label.
A week later, Hank had joined the Sugar Hill Gang, already made up of members Wonder Mike and Master Gee, and recorded “Rapper’s Delight.”
“Hank never came back to The Bronx after that,” Caz said. “The Sugar Hill Gang was on tour three years straight. He never reached back to contact anybody.
“It was his job as my manager to introduce me to Sylvia. [But] he was an opportunist and he just jumped on it for himself. Hank couldn’t rap a package. He didn’t change one word of the song — I was Casanova Fly, not him.”
Hank has never outright denied using Caz’s rhymes without credit. While he couldn’t be reached for comment for this story, he addressed the situation in the 2004 documentary “And You Don’t Stop: 30 Years of Hip Hop.”
“I can understand why [Caz] would say that and um . . . I have nothing but love for him,” Hank said. “We used a lot of stuff together, and I guess because he didn’t move that magnitude and [I guess he was angry because] I couldn’t bring him in. Some of the stuff was done together, and I just transposed it over.”
Caz isn’t the only one who knows what Hank did. Back in the day, the Sugar Hill Gang was booed whenever they played New York City, and when Ice T made his 2012 documentary, “Something for Nothing: The Art of Rap,” Caz participated — but the Sugar Hill Gang was shunned.
While it’s not fair to call the group a one-hit wonder, Sugar Hill Gang never had another success like “Rapper’s Delight.” The original lineup toured on and off until breaking up in 2007.
Caz, who still resides in The Bronx, has continued working as an emcee and deejay. He has seen moderate success, and has the respect of his peers. But he’s never seen the kind of cash he would’ve received if he’d been credited on “Rapper’s Delight.”
“I didn’t know about suing people, or lawyers or publishing or royalties,” Caz explains. “I wasn’t in the music business — we were doing hip-hop before hip-hop was the music business.”
He says he’s getting a lawyer now because “Rapper’s Delight” is finally getting the recognition it deserves for introducing hip-hop to the world, and he’d like some too.
“I want credit,” Caz says. “You know, for the record. Before I leave this planet, I would like to be recognized as one of the writers on that song. It’s one of the most monumental things I’ve done in my career.”
Until his name is on that song, the most ironic line in “Rapper’s Delight” will taunt him: “But whatever you do in your lifetime, You never let an MC steal your rhyme.”