Best known for their 1976 smash ‘(Do The) Spanish Hustle’, the Fatback Band were known for playing fast and loose with styles as they mixed their own-brand funk with disco, jazz, classical, southern soul and whatever else took their skittish fancy. Led by founding drummer Bill Curtis, the band were finishing off 1979 LP Fatback XII when Curtis bemoaned the lack of a potential hit. A Bronx native, hip to the sound of street-corner rappers around his locale, Curtis suggested bringing in an emcee to finish off a placeholder track with no vocals called ‘Catch The Beat’. Fleet-of-tongue Harlem hipster Timothy Washington (hastily rechristened King Tim III when the single emerged) landed the gig and put down his rhymes in two high-energy blasts. The resulting braggadocious party anthem was like a block party on wax, Washington effortlessly hitting his marks with his exhortations to wave hands in the air and “sway ’em like you just don’t care”. After the A-side stalled, radio DJs flipped the script and the B-side peaked at 26 on the R&B charts – a snub to Fatback’s label Spring, who hated the track, and a red alert of the emerging artform’s untapped potential for Sugarhill Records’ Joe and Sylvia Robinson. Widely considered the first ever rap record, it was still the much less svelte ‘Rapper’s Delight’ (issued six months later) that took hip-hop global. That felt bittersweet to the ailing Fatback Band, who’s most urgent priority was a hit, not a footnote in history, nonetheless the impact of ‘King Tim III (Personality Jock)’ will never be forgotten.