In anticipation of his Dec. 10 show at the Crazy Donkey, Wonder Mike, formerly of the Sugarhill Gang, shares his experiences since the group made history by bringing hip hop to the mainstream with “Rapper’s Delight” more than a quarter century ago. Althou

In anticipation of his Dec. 10 show at the Crazy Donkey, Wonder Mike, formerly of the Sugarhill Gang, shares his experiences since the group made history by bringing hip hop to the mainstream with “Rapper’s Delight” more than a quarter century ago. Although he defected since the trio regrouped a decade after they disbanded in the ‘80s, the 49-year-old is still making music with Master Gee and company.

Wonder Mike talks of how the scene has changed over the years and where it’s headed now.
Wonder Mike: No, we’ve been doing dates on the regular for the past year, Guy and myself, the original Master Gee, we got together last year—April, that’s when I left the Sugarhill Gang. And what I did was start another group and I called up Guy and I asked him if he wanted to make some new music.

And he already had an established magazine subscription business and he said, “Yeah, no problem.” So I said, “Yeah, let’s make some music and let’s get paid this time.” [laughs]
WM: Yeah, this time, since we were so musically stifled before, we’re using all of our influences, things that we like.

There’ll be reggae flavors, some reggaeton, some rock, some jazzy stuff, some Coltrane-type stuff, some neo-soul. It is crazy. Even some Spanish.

Never mind all this cookie cutter stuff where everyone’s afraid to venture out and say what they want. We’re not going to bow down to this advocacy of violence and misogynistic attitude. We’re still not going to do that.

What we’ll do is have really kick ass music with edified lyrics and we’ll try to change this thing around.
WM: No, we’re going to try for April or May.
LIP: Aside from the past year, have you been active in the scene since Sugarhill Gang originally broke up back in the ‘80s?

WM: I left in ’85, we just disbanded in ’85, I went, got married and started my own business, had some kids, then I decided to get back into it in ’94. That’s when I went back with Sugarhill Gang and that lasted until April 2005 when I said ok, I’m not getting anywhere. I’m on a treadmill here.

WM: I had an interior/exterior painting business where I did the work [laughs] and wood floor refinishing, dry wall and some demolition and some faux finishing—making walls and columns look like marble and stuff.
LIP: From your perspective, how has the hip hop world evolved since your initial breakthrough?
WM: I think it’s come full circle because one of the main reasons for our breaking up was we refused to do violent stuff.

We had other raps besides ‘hey party time and have fun’ but Sugarhill wouldn’t allow us to express those ideas. ‘You guys are party, fun. Sound like a Midwestern gameshow host.

” It was crazy. They’re idea was if it aint broke, beat it to death. Here we are, we’re writing “Rapper’s Delight.

” Hank got his part from Grand Master Caz, I wrote my own and Guy wrote his own and so the record all of a sudden everybody else is a hip hop lyric expert: ‘No, say this, don’t say that’ and they just kind of pigeonholed us.
LIP: In your opinion, what is the best part versus the worst part of this industry?
WM: The worst part is the deception and thievery and it can be done maliciously without any discretion or it can do by smiling in your face and robbing you behind your back.

It’s a multi-billion dollar business. If there were one million artists and there was one billion dollars to go around everybody could have $900,000—whatever the math is. There’s enough to go around.

Untalented, unscrupulous snake in the grass son of a bitches think that are owed the most of the pot. The best part is meeting with fans, having a seed of a thought and carrying that out and seeing where that goes and honing it and trying different melodies and different lyric rhythms and finally coming up with something that sounds cohesive and not something that sounds like somebody said, “Hey, we need one more song for the album, think of something!” and you come up with some garbage in your garage while your fixing lights.

And then you take that idea and put it out and people respond to it when you do it in concert and they’re singing your lyrics with you, that’s the best part.
WM: I would like to work with Farrell, I’d like to work with Jimmy Jam Terry Louis—they have a proven track record. I’d like to work with David Foster, he has like a three dimensional really rich complete sound and I write more than hip hop, I write Josh Groban type songs also.

I can write Michael McDonald type songs, Dale Phoenix type songs, Beatles type songs. I’ve written all of them, but they haven’t been recorded yet. On some of that stuff I’d like someone who has an ear like that because they’re structured that way.

LIP: The radio climate as far as the FCC cracking down on obscenities must have been much more harsh over 25 years ago as compared to today, did you guys catch flack for saying relatively harmless things like “Supersperm?”
WM: Yeah, in fact we caught flack from pretty much everything from the parents ‘cause the kids were kind of young, some of them, and they’d come to the show and they’d say, “Wonder Mike sign this,” and I’m signing a baseball cap or whatever and then the kid says, “I know the words, I know the words: hip hop, the hip…” and the mother would be like with a look of consternation, “Oh, you know that but you don’t know your homework!” It felt like I was some kind of a social rebel at time but I knew we weren’t saying anything offensive.

WM: He’s still with the Sugarhill Gang. They’re going around, they do shows but unfortunately they’re using Guy’s voice and my voice and lip-syncing over top of it which is the epitome of talentlessness.
WM: Well yea, pretty much me and Guy.

We both broke out about a year apart. But I went back in ’94 and he didn’t go back at all and I left in 2005 and then we got back together again. But we were always bucking the system.

We had musical ideas, we’re musical guys. I grew up with all kinds of music in the house. All kinds of Jazz: Jazz Crusaders and Cannonball Adderly and Coltrane and then the Motown stuff and the Beatles stuff and I’m having all of these influences.

LIP: Is it true that when you auditioned for Sugarhill Gang that you were rapping with such intensity that you had an asthma attack?
WM: No, people like to say that. It sounds good but that didn’t happen.

It’s crazy how people embellish the story. I think life is interesting enough without that.
WM: As far as myself and Master Gee are concerned, we wrote every single syllable on that record and on subsequent records.

Hank didn’t write his part. What happened was Hank used to be a bouncer in some of these clubs in New York and he heard some of the rhymes these guys were saying and when he got the job for Sugarhill, he asked Grand Master Caz, “Yo, these people want me to make a record, cane you help me up with some rhymes” and he asked him and Caz threw the book on the table and said, “Take what you want.” It’s true that Hank didn’t write his rhymes but he had permission from Caz but that’s too nice of a story so people like to invent volatile things.

I think Caz would appreciate being compensated of course.

WM: To keep putting out kick-ass albums of all types of music. I would like to do what Queen Latifah did and do some standards.

Put on a tuxedo and do the dinner thing. I like that. I like whatever kind of music is evocative.

I will never have someone think for me, “Why you like that?” ‘Cause it sounds good, dumbass! What do you think I’m listening to it for?

I don’t care if it’s Andre Bocelli or the soundtrack to West Side Story or Barbra Streisand’s Broadway album or Humble Pie live at the Fillmore. Whatever I find evocative that’s what I go for.