Blondie of Sequence in her dressing room

The Sequence is the first southern Hip-Hop group—from Columbia, South Carolina—and the first Hip-Hop trio signed to pioneering Hip-Hop label Sugarhill Records, in the late 1970s. The Sequence included high school friends, Cheryl The Pearl (Cheryl Cook, b. unknown), Blondie (Gwendolyn Chisolm, b. unknown), Angie B (Angie Brown Stone, b. 1961). Their most notable song “Funk You Up,” has been sampled by artists like Dr. Dre, Erykah Badu, and En Vogue. The Sequence became one of the first acts signed to pioneering Hip-Hop label Sugarhill Records. Though never officially certified, “Funk You Up” was a nationwide hit, serving as the first Rap hit performed by women, and only the third Rap song to chart in the Top 50 of Billboard’s Hot Soul Singles. In a 70s Seventies landscape where the few Rap records that existed were chorus-free rhyme marathons, the Sequence seamlessly mixed singing and rapping and set the standard for what women who could sing and rap during the emerging era of early Hip-Hop.