Rock Corridor Inductee Sylvia Robinson: From Hit Artist to Hip-Hop Mogul

Sylvia Robinson (1935-2011) has deservedly been referred to as “the mom of hip-hop” for her efforts in co-founding and working Sugar Hill Data. However whilst spectacular an honorific as that may’t start to encapsulate a wide-ranging profession that predated the daybreak of rap and unfolded over a outstanding half-century in music.

Like her fellow 2022 Ahmet Ertegun Award honorees, Grubman and Iovine, Robinson created a world during which musicmakers may come to the fore and thrive. Not solely did she co-found one of many first hip-hop labels, Sugar Hill Data, and function its CEO, however she was one of many architects of its signature hits as co-writer and producer of “Rapper’s Delight” (1979) by the Sugarhill Gang and “The Message” (1982) by Grandmaster Flash and the Livid 5.

Robinson had tasted musical success as an artist earlier than shifting behind the scenes. First it was as a part of the slinky soul-pop duo Mickey & Sylvia, whose single “Love Is Unusual” topped the R&B and Billboard pop charts in 1957.

She returned as a solo artist, Sylvia, on 1972’s “Pillow Speak,” a observe she initially wrote for Al Inexperienced. Though she’s not as well-remembered for it, Robinson was a guitarist, too, taking part in on tracks together with Ike & Tina Turner’s Grammy-nominated “It’s Gonna Work Out Superb.”

Throughout her time in Mickey & Sylvia or as a mononymously named solo act and past, Robinson created her personal report labels to take care of a way of management, beginning with Willow Data, co-owned with Mickey Baker, and All Platinum Data, along with her businessman husband, Joe Robinson, each within the Sixties. However her biggest legacy stays Sugar Hill. 

Fashioned in 1979 with husband, Joe, their associate Milton Malden and funding from the legendarily controversial Morris Levy, the label — named for the Sugar Hill space of Harlem — was constructed when New York Metropolis’s boroughs had been the flashpoint for early hip-hop. 

Together with the cunningly humorous likes of “Rapper’s Delight,” Robinson oversaw the chopping import of “The Message” and different important, socio-conscious 12-inch singles corresponding to Melle Mel’s “White Traces,” which touched on the heartbreak of a neighborhood stricken by medication. From the style’s streetwise, storytelling rappers and scratching, sampling DJs to its colourful breakdancing crews, hip-hop was in its toddler phases — and Robinson was there at its delivery.