Sylvia Robinson
May 29, 1935 – September 29, 2011
In 1960, a 25-year-old performer-songwriter named Sylvia Vanderpool Robinson — then of the guitar-and-vocal duo Mickey & Sylvia, known for their million-selling “Love Is Strange” — walked into a recording studio in Manhattan to work with a New Orleans artist named Joe Jones on a tune he called “You Talk Too Much.” Sylvia Robinson walked out a record producer. She did not receive credit for the session, one she claimed that she had run on behalf of Jones’ label, Morris Levy’s Roulette Records. If she had, it might have cemented her as the first-ever black and female independent record producer to have a top 10 pop hit. (The song peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.)
Instead, Sylvia would become famous for another breakthrough: conceiving and producing the first successful rap record. Forty years ago, in the summer of 1979, “Rapper’s Delight” by The Sugarhill Gang transformed the street culture of hip-hop into a commercially viable art form. It was not only the first rap single to conquer the radio and the charts — topping Billboard’s R&B tally and reaching No. 37 on the Hot 100 — but the first to sell over a million. After facing criticism from hip-hop’s pioneers for fabricating The Sugarhill Gang from three wannabe rappers, Robinson filled out her roster with genuine acts: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, The Funky 4 + 1, The Treacherous Three. Within a few years, she had built one of the top independent labels in America, Sugar Hill Records, along with her husband, Joe Robinson. Her success with Sugar Hill was historic. She’s arguably one of the most consequential producers and label owners of all time. Her business opened the doors for all the independents that followed from Def Jam to Top Dawg, and her music pioneered distinct concepts that set the template for hip-hop’s entire creative arc. From party rocking, to the DJ as musician, to social consciousness, Sugar Hill made everything possible for today’s hip-hop stars.
