Rapper and co-founder of the groundbreaking hip-hop group The Sugarhill Gang, Big Bank Hank has died of cancer at 57 according to reports from TMZ. The news comes weeks after the 35th anniversary of the group's 1979 classic "Rapper's Delight" first emerging on the Billboard chart. The crew formed in Englewood, New Jersey and reached that milestone just two years after their founding in 1977. Considered one of the godfathers of rap, Hank's contributions as a member of the Sugarhill Gang marked the first signs of hip-hop's commercial viability. The mainstream success of the trio's seminal single would ultimately help to usher in major opportunities for subsequent generations of MC's to realize massive wealth and success in a genre that was once dismissed as "noise" and largely predicted to crash and burn. In conversation with FOX News, the group's manager David Mallie noted that Jackson died early this morning from kidney complications due to cancer. Hank is survived by his Sugarhill Gang brothers Wonder Mike and Master Gee and mourned by lovers of hip-hop culture across the world. RIP Big Bank Hank.
