Before Salt-N- Pepa told us to “Push It” and way before The City Girls were getting “flewd out” there was The Sequence, the first female rap group. High school friends Cheryl “The Pearl” Cook, Gwendolyn “Blondie” Chisolm, and Angie “Angie B” Brown formed the group in South Carolina. After going backstage of a Sugarhill Gang show and meeting the iconic music producer and recording artist Sylvia Robinson, they did an impromptu audition on the spot.
Completely blown away by their talent, the “Pillow Talk” singer signed them instantly. The Sequence would go on to create “Funk You Up”, an infectious mid-tempo funk groove with a catchy sing-song hook that has been sampled by Dr. Dre on “Keep Their Heads Ringin’ ”, Erykah Badu’s “Love of My Life” Remix, and most infamously, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk”, just to name a few.
The Sequence may not have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but their influence is embedded all up and through hip hop. Considering that they were from South Carolina they are also the first notable southern hip-hop group and the first commercially successful hip-hop group. Their single “Funk You Up” sold 500,000 records within three weeks after its release. That was (and still is) an amazing feat because during the late 1970s hip hop was in its infancy. Radio DJs and music execs had no clue what to do with this new sound emerging from the Bronx. The Sequence along with Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five and The Sugarhill Gang gave hip hop a global platform, taking it from the block parties to the world’s center stage.
The Sequence would go on to release three full length albums under Sugarhill Records before disbanding in the mid 80s. Cheryl Cook would pen songs and lyrics for her labelmates, and eventually she and Chisolm would later settle into regular life while Angie B would become thee “Angie Stone”. Queen Angie is noted for her contributions to Neo Soul, reality TV, the Girlfriends television show theme song, AND making the fine a$$ brothas like Idris Elba drool over her. We’re willing to bet that she was the real muse for her ex D’Angelo’s “Brown Sugar”, not the weed!
Moreover, The Sequence’s impact can be felt in female rap today. Their bold lyrics about female empowerment, motherhood and putting your needs first were groundbreaking because technically the music industry, especially rap music, was and still is “a man’s world”. So when you think of events and things that have shaped this thing called hip hop history, please don’t forget to include these mothers in the sequence
