SameOldShawn: Somewhat ironically, the group's perhaps best known song, "The Message", wasn't originally the group's idea

Rahiem: No, "The Message" was the idea of a musician who created the song, Ed Fletcher aka Duke Bootee. He was one of the members of the Sugar Hill Gang band and basically "The Message" started out as a spoken word piece. It had like conga drums in the background and it was more presented in a spoken word format. And he wanted the Sugar Hill Gang to do it, but they didn't like it. And so they refused to do it, so he went and remixed it and got it in the studio with new music put to it. He brought it back to Sylvia Robinson and she basically loved the song and told us we needed to do the song because it was going to change our career. We didn't like the song because it was contrary to all the other songs we were making up to that point

SameOldShawn: Which would eventually be on "The Message" album

Rahiem: Right. We wanted to make a song like "Planet Rock", because "Planet Rock" was the hottest Hip Hop song at the time, so we felt as though we needed to make a song like that in order to make our impression felt. So she agreed to allow us to make a song like "Planet Rock", and we did our version of "Planet Rock" which was "Scorpio". But we had to record that song. So we went to the studio, and each of us who cared to take the opportunity, because we weren't big on reciting anyone else's lyric and had we had ample enough time, we could have written our own lyric, but we weren't afforded that opportunity. So she allowed us to audition, basically, to be on "The Message". Cowboy auditioned, then I auditioned. When I went in the booth, I spit Melle Mel's lyric to our song "Superappin'" and I spit "A child is born". I spit that particular verse because I felt it fit that particular song. After I finished I came out of the booth and Ms. Robinson said, "That's a take, we're keeping that." And I said, "No, Ms. Robinson, that's actually Melle Mel's rhyme. I just spit that rhyme because it fit the song." She said "You're dead on with that one. Okay, Mel, go in the booth and do your verse." So that's how Mel ultimately got on the song