15-year-old singer Stacy Lattisaw released this hip-hop/funk song in 1982 as the second single from her fourth album Sneakin' Out.

In the early ’80s, hip-hop was still considered an exciting new style, and after Blondie’s “Rapture” hit the top of the charts in 1981, a number of pop stars started flirting with the idea of rapping on their records.

Lattisaw and producer Narada Michael Walden first experimented with rap on 1981’s “Feel My Love Tonight,” but the team doubled down on “Attack of the Name Game,” which is essentially a full hip-hop song.

The song bears a sonic resemblance to Tom Tom Club’s 1981 song “Genius of Love,” and Walden collaborated with influential electro producer Patrick Cowley to capture the similarly funky, stuttering synth sound.

Lyrically and thematically, the song is an update of “The Name Game,” a 1964 proto-rap novelty hit by Shirley Ellis, where the singer playfully morphs various names into rhythmic rhyming nonsense.

In 2010, Lattisaw reflected on the song’s recording in an interview with Blogcritics:

That was fun. All my friends from my neighborhood came to the studio. My brother, Jerry, did a part. My other friends did the background part: ”Slack you back, I’ve gotta slack attack…”

“Attack of the Name Game” reached #14 on the R&B chart, and #70 on the Hot 100. In 1999, Mariah Carey heavily sampled the song on her #1 pop hit “Heartbreaker.”