“Wordy Rappinghood” by Tom Tom Club

"Wordy Rappinghood" was Tom Tom Club's first single, a 1981 opening shot from their self-titled debut. The story starts in Nassau, Bahamas, where Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz had moved and their neighbor Chris Blackwell, the man who owned Island Records, asked them to come and cut some music at his Compass Point Studios. They brought in Steven Stanley, a keyboard player who had engineered Ian Dury's Lord Upminster; he shares the writing and production credits with them, and he recorded and mixed the track too.

It's a gloriously odd little thing: a typewriter clatters it into life, jarring synth chords poke at a distinctive drum break, and one verse slips into spoken French. Part of it comes from "A Ram Sam Sam", a Moroccan children's song and game that a 1971 Rolf Harris recording had made popular. In the States it topped Billboard's Disco Top 80, sharing the spot with "Genius of Love".

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.