Sylvia Robinson: The Visionary of Rap

Sylvia Vanderpool Robinson was born on March 6 of 1936 on New York City. Her
parents where immigrants from the Virgin Islands (Saint Thomas) and her father specially, as he
played the saxophone, made sure his daughters and sons had contact with music(Charnas 41). At
a very young age Sylvia was involved in the music industry having recorded at age thirteen for
Savoy Records under the name of "Little Sylvia". Dan Charnas in his book The Big PaybackThe History of the Business of Hip Hop expresses the importance of Sylvia's father, Herbert
Vanderpool, on her career as he contracted Mc Houston "Mickey" Baker to instruct Sylvia on
rhythm-and-blues guitar. That same instructor is who became Sylvia's music partner in the duo
"Mickey & Sylvia". Another great influence in Sylvia's life was her husband Joe Robinson. "It
was Joe, says Sylvia, who suggested that she form a musical partnership with her guitar teacher,
McHouston Mickey Baker, 11 years her senior"(Daly). The partnership with her music
instructor resulted a success with the hit "Love is Strange". In 1968 Sylvia and Joe Robinson cofounded All Platinum Records. "In the early 1970s, Joe and Sylvia Robinsons humble New
Jersey enterprise was scoring modest hits on the American R&B charts and in Europe as well.
All Platinums biggest success came with Pillow Talk, a song Sylvia had written in 1972 and
unsuccessfully pitched to Al Green"(Daly). As Al Green refused to sing "Pillow Talk" Sylvia
herself made a solo debut and sang the song that became a hit. Since the beginnings Sylvia was
causing sensation in the music industry being one of the firsts women to own a recording label
and exposing such a sexually charged song as "Pillow Talk". This song is considered to be a
precursor of the genre of Disco and "ushered in a wave of music by black woman about sexual
self confidence"(Ulaby). But a decade after the establishment of All Platinum Records the
company had financial problems and was filling for bankruptcy.

Just when Sylvia's record label, All Platinum, was going out of business something
happened that changed her life and Hip Hop's history for better or for worst. Sylvia's niece,
Deborah Jones, made a party for Sylvia in the club she managed called Harlem World(Charnas
40). That night hosting the party was Lovebug Starski a DJ protg of DJ Hollywood and an
alumnus of the Disco Fever. What she saw that night inspired her to work on a new project as a
producer.
One evening in late June 1979, she found herself attending a party
in Manhattan, 30 minutes from her home in Englewood, New
Jersey, at an uptown club named Harlem World. Sylvia Robinson is
now retired from the music game, but she will never forget the
sights and sounds that assailed her senses when she took her seat in
the clubs balcony. A D.J. called Lovebug Starski was spinning
R&B hits for an appreciative crowd, whom he whipped into a
frenzy by embellishing the music with his own rhymes,
catchphrases, exhortations. Some called it rapping.(Daly)
The excitement caused by the performance of DJ Lovebug Starski made her not to think
twice and offer him and other pioneers of the underground Hip Hop movement to record on the
music label she was forming with her husband, Sugar Hill Records ( a substitution of the before
failed All Platinum Records), but all of them refused. Mathew Birkhold in his article "If you
don't move your feet then I don't eat" explains why established Hip Hop D.J.'s and rappers
wouldn't agree to make contract with record labels and preferred working directly with the clubs
hosting the parties.

When Sal Abbatiello opened the Fever in the South Bronx, he

booked Flash, who after a couple of weeks began bringing the
Furious Five along with him, as well as other DJs and crews. With
what became a weekly wage, DJs and their crews were not
interested in making records. According to Love Bug Starski, he
was asked by Sylvia Robinson to record Rappers Delight, but
decided against it because he was getting so much money for just
DJing (Fricke and Ahearn 2002, 181). Throughout 1979, Flash
was approached by record companies but consistently declined
their offers because club jobs guaranteed money while records did
not (Chang 2005).(Birkhold 309)
After the rejection of the established underground Hip Hop exponents Sylvia asked her
son, Joey Junior, to help her look for anyone who would agree to record with Sugar Hill Records
the music she heard that night. She auditioned Henry "Hank" Jackson, Guy O'Brien, and Mike
Wright. As the audition went forward Sylvia Robinson thought "why not two?", when the last
one auditioned her thought changed into "why not three?". She decided finally to pick all three as
the integrants of the newly formed Sugar Hill Gang being their artist names: "Big Bank" Hank,
Master Gee", and "Wonder" Mike(Charnas 48). In August of 1979 Sugar Hill Gang began
recording the song "Rappers Delight". With the launch of "Rappers Delight" there was an
exponential creation of rap crews and many pioneers of the Hip Hop culture where motivated to
record with labels when not so long ago they refused to(Birkhold 309).
Not that the Bronx afforded Rappers Delight any great
respect when the record strongly suggested that hip-hop might

have mass appeal. As far as the pioneers of hip-hop were

concerned, these Sugarhill suckers were nothing but yokels from
the wrong side of the Hudson. We said, Who the hell is this,
coming out with our stuff on records? recalls Afrika Bambaataa.
Adds a rueful Grandmaster Flash, There was so many more
rhymers that were deeper So much deeper (Daly)
This was the principal argument of the pioneers of Hip Hop, that this song didn't
represent them and as Grandmaster Flash said "There was so many more rhymers that were
deeper" but they forget to mention that Sylvia Robinson offered to record with them first. Also
what she saw that night was the potential of the music as a way to make money to save her and
her family of the bad financial situation they were. And how did the song did not represent them
if the writer was DJ Casanova Fly?
Noticing Sugar Hill Record's success with the single "Rapper's Delight" Bobby Robinson
questioned himself why didn't he thought of recording first, then created Enjoy Records and
scouted for established underground Hip Hop artists whom agreed to record with him. As Enjoy
Records began having success too Sylvia and Joe Robinson got aware of its existence and they
both decided to take action. They approached several artists that were recording with Enjoy
Records as Grand Master Flash & The Furious Five, the Funky Four Plus One More, and
Spoonie Gee(Charnas 58).
Ms. Robinson later signed Grandmaster Flash and the Furious
Five, and in 1982 she was a producer of their seminal song, The
Message. It was groundbreaking rap about ghetto life that became

one of the most powerful social commentaries of its time, laying

the groundwork for the gangsta rap of the late 1980s.( Mckinley)
Sylvia definitely redeemed herself producing "The Message" as it shows another side of
rapping that "represented" what was happening in the streets and not just a good rime with no
content as "Rapper's Delight". As the first rap song produced by Sugar Hill Records was meant
to cause sensation and make space in the world for this kind of music, the second opened the
space for rappers to expose songs with social content. But Ms. Robinson did not stop there, she
went even further, she dared to rap with her own style telling the story of how she made history
with the hit of "Rapper's Delight". Her song "It's Good to be the Queen" contained the following
lyrics: "It started back, in seventy-nine/My whole darn future, was on the line/ I created, a brand,
new sensation/ Through my mind and the whole darn nation/ With the Big Bank Hank, the
Wonder Mike/ And this kid called Master G (that's me)/ Well would you believe their Rapper's
Delight/ Went down in history, hahaha!". Another element of her song that is presented in many
of nowadays rappers is the show off of the money they got, the house and luxury objects, in her
case the furs. Probably her rapping wasn't the best or the most "real" for the underground
pioneers but as a woman Sylvia was again setting a precedent. Roxanne Shante is considered to
be one of the first women to rap in 1984 she gained fame with her song "Roxanne's Revenge".
Meanwhile Sylvia Robinson had already exposed her song at 1982 singing with flow "rapping
about her money, her furs, her cars"(Charnas 62).
Sadly Sylvia Vanderpool Robinson died at the age of seventy-five (Sept 29, 2011) in the
New Jersey Institute of Neuroscience because of a congestive heart failure after being
temporarily in coma. Nonetheless she is still present in the music industry as a singer and
producer. Even thought Sylvia was criticized it cannot be denied that as a black woman she did

set an example and broke many race and gender barriers of her time. Sylvia made her way in the
music industry as an artist and became one of the first women to produce and own a record label.
There is no denying she was the mastermind behind the massive world acceptance of Hip Hop.
Thanks to the "Rappin Queen".

Bibliography:
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York Times 30 Sept. 2011: B15. The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 Sept.
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<http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2005/11/hiphop200511>.
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American Library, 2010. Print.
Birkhold, Matthew. "If You Don't Move Your Feet Then I Don't Eat: Hip Hop and the
Demand for Black Labor." Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts 4.2,
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