Sylvia Robinson, 'Mother of Hip Hop' Dies

We are saddened to learn that singer, songwriter and record producer, Sylvia Robinson died this morning at age 75.

Robinson is known in the hip hop realm as the “mother of hip hop,” after seamlessly producing “Rapper’s Delight,” by the Sugar Hill Gang, which became the first rap song in history to hit mainstream airwaves. It also reached Number 4 on the R&B Charts.

Robinson co-founded All Platinum Records with her husband, Joe Robinson, and she released her solo effort, “Pillow Talk,” which hit the Billboard charts in 1973. In 1979, they co-founded another record company called Sugar Hill Records.

She was a pioneer in forcing the rap genre into the music field, and later she would sign Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and help deliver another hit, “The Message” in 1982.

According to the YBF, hip hop guru Steve Stoute said this about Robinson: “I hope the world remembers Sylvia Robinson as a pioneer and innovator that, because of her contribution to society, a culture was born and a generation was raised.”

She passed this morning of congestive heart failure at Meadowlands Hospital in Secaucus, NJ.