Sylvia Robinson dies

Why it matters

Sylvia Robinson died on September 29, 2011, of congestive heart failure, in New Jersey. She was 75. The New York Times obituary called her, in the headline, "Mother of Hip-Hop." That is correct as a headline and also slightly less than the truth. The truth is that Sylvia Robinson saw what hip-hop was, in 1979, before basically anybody in the music industry did, including the people who were inside hip-hop. She and her husband Joe started Sugar Hill Records. They put out "Rapper's Delight." They put out "The Message." They put out "White Lines." Each of those records moved the music forward in a way that, looking back, you almost cannot believe one tiny New Jersey label did. She had been a working R&B singer since the 1950s, so she knew what a hit sounded like, and when she heard kids rapping in a Harlem club she did not need anybody to convince her that what she was hearing was a hit. She just had to build the business that would sell it. She did, and then she did, and then she did again. Mother of hip-hop is right.