Drag Rap

The record

“Drag Rap” was recorded by the Showboys, the Hollis, Queens duo of Orville “Buggs Can Can” Hall and Phillip “Triggerman” Price, and released by Profile Records in 1986. The song is a crime story built on the theme from the television series Dragnet; Hall has said the idea came to him when he heard the theme and started beatboxing over it. Keyboardist and engineer Brian Perkins worked on the session. The record also appeared on Mr. Magic's 1986 compilation Rap Attack, but it drew little attention in New York.

The break

“Drag Rap” is not built around a borrowed drum break. Its most used parts are its own: a xylophone figure that Perkins played by hand for the full six minutes, because the drum machine sequencing was giving them trouble, and a syncopated Roland TR-808 drum and bass pattern that arrives in the middle of the track. Producers have also lifted the “all right” vocal ad libs, the drum rolls and the “bones” piano loop. Together these became known as the “Triggerman” beat, after Price's nickname.

Into hip hop

The record found its audience in the South. In Memphis, DJ Spanish Fly picked it up and worked it into his mixtapes, and the beat became tied to the city's “gangsta walk” dance; he released his own “Trigga Man” in 1990. In New Orleans, MC T. Tucker had bought “Drag Rap” on a 1986 trip to New York. With DJ Irv he looped the 808 section on turntables for “Where Dey At,” issued on cassette in 1991 and pushed through local radio. DJ Jimi's “Where They At” followed in 1992, and the two records helped define bounce music. Cash Money producer Mannie Fresh returned to the beat for Juvenile's “Back That Azz Up” in 1998.

Legacy

The Triggerman beat has since moved far beyond its regional base, turning up in David Banner's “Like a Pimp,” T.I. and Lil Wayne's “Ball,” Drake's “Nice for What” and “In My Feelings,” Chris Brown and Young Thug's “Go Crazy” and Cardi B's “Outside.” The heavy reuse led to a long dispute between the Showboys and Profile's successor, Protoons, which stopped paying royalties in 2015 and argued that the song used an unlicensed nine-note passage from the Dragnet theme. In 2024 a court granted summary judgment to Hall and Price on their breach of contract claim and dismissed Protoons' counterclaims. More than any other record, “Drag Rap” shows how a New York single could become the foundation of two Southern rap traditions.