A Warning From History, Part 1: “The Rapper” by The Jaggerz

It took Pittsburgh’s Jaggerz six years to get a hit. In the interim they signed to Gamble and Huff’s Gamble label and pursued the blue-eyed soul path for awhile, but they then moved to Kama Sutra and scored with what sounds like a Nuggets/Bubblegum Is Back mash-up or leftover. “The Rapper” handles its 1966 psychedelic tropes pretty deftly, though in 2018 could probably not be a more timely song; it is a warning to women about the type of man who…well, we’ve all followed the debates and headlines over the last six months or so, and the “rapper”’s tricks are exposed by chilling pickaxes of fuzz bass and echoes to reveal the horror beneath the “not like other guys” façade. You get the feeling Donnie Iris probably wanted to call the song something else beginning with “Rap” but the message it conveys is clear, even with the frat house studio applause at song’s end.

Date Record Made Number Two: 21 March 1970

Number Of Weeks At Number Two: 1

Record At Number One: “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel

UK Chart Position: None

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