Blondy Chisolm dies, remembering The Sequence’s groundbreaking rap legacy

Gwendolyn “Blondy” Chisolm, whose work with The Sequence helped open rap’s first major lane for women, died Monday, April 6, 2026, in Atlanta at 66 after a brief illness. Her obituary says she was born Oct. 20, 1959, in Columbia, South Carolina, and died after Easter complications led to septic shock.

Chisolm’s death brings renewed attention to The Sequence, the Columbia trio she formed in 1979 with Cheryl “The Pearl” Cook and Angela “Angie B” Brown, later known as Angie Stone. Their break came after a backstage encounter at a Sugarhill Gang concert in their hometown, followed by an audition for Sylvia Robinson, the founder of Sugar Hill Records. From that chance meeting came one of early hip-hop’s most important groups, and one that has often been given less credit than its influence deserves.

The Sequence are widely recognized as the first female hip-hop group, the first all-female act signed to Sugar Hill Records, and America’s first Southern rap group. Their 1979 single “Funk You Up” reached No. 15 on Billboard’s Hot Soul Singles chart and is widely described as the first rap hit performed by women. The group’s 1980 debut album, “Sugar Hill Presents The Sequence,” became the first hip-hop record on vinyl released by an all-female act. Those milestones placed Chisolm, Cook and Brown inside rap history at a moment when the industry was still deciding who counted as part of it.

Chisolm’s family confirmed her death, and her sister, Monica Scott, said Chisolm was a creative force and that the world should remember her music. That legacy now sits alongside the broader record of Black women shaping popular music long before they were fully centered in its history, ownership, or canon. The Sequence’s story is not just about an early hit; it is about women from the South helping define a genre that later too often treated their contributions as secondary.

Angie Stone, the trio’s other longtime member, died in a car crash in Alabama on March 1, 2025, at 63, leaving Cook as the surviving member of the original lineup. With Chisolm’s death, one of rap’s foundational groups is now reduced to memory, but “Funk You Up” remains a lasting marker of how early women forced their way into a form that would go on to reshape American music.