The legacy of Sugar Hill Records extends more than a decade before founder Sylvia Robinson became enchanted with the popular "talking music" that she decided to record and distribute in 1979. Robinson, previously known as Sylvia Vanderpool, was a huge star in her own right, long before she became a maker of stars. Under the stage name "Little Sylvia," she recorded for the Savoy and Jubilee labels as early as 1951, scoring hits such as "Little Boy" and "A Million Tears." By the mid 1950s, she had formed a duo with her former guitar instructor Mickey Baker and scored the hit "Love Is Strange," which topped the U.S. R&B chart and peaked at number 11 on the U.S. Pop chart. The song has been remade dozens of times and appeared in the 1987 film Dirty Dancing and on its soundtrack. In 2004, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its influence as a rock and roll single.

In 1964, Sylvia married Joe Robinson and introduced him to the entertainment business. Together, Sylvia and Joe ran recording studios and nightclubs, and in 1968 they founded All Platinum Records. By the 1970s, Sylvia and Joe ran no less than half a dozen labels, amongst them Turbo, Stang, Vibration and Astroscope. Those labels released big hits for The Moments (later Ray, Goodman and Brown), The Rimshots, The Ponderosa Twins, The Whatnauts, Linda Jones and Sylvia herself. In fact, Sylvia's biggest solo hit was 1974's "Pillow Talk," which was written by Sylvia with Al Green in mind. Al wasn't interested and suggested that Sylvia record it herself, she did and the rest is history. In 1975, Sylvia and Joe acquired the Chess catalog, which includes recordings by Etta James, Bo Diddley and other legendary soul and blues artists.

Industry insiders speculate that the Chess Records acquisition was more than the Robinsons could handle; and by 1978, they were declaring Chapter 13 bankruptcy. A fateful visit to her niece's birthday party at the legendary Harlem World Entertainment Complex would not only turn her financial situation around, it also gave birth to a new recorded genre of music. A listen to "It's Good To Be The Queen," Sylvia's 1982 autobiographical single on Sugar Hill, affirms the turnaround. She rhymed:

The creation of rap music's first commercially successful rap song and label was a series of chance meetings and fateful encounters. Henry "Big Bank Hank" Jackson was a bouncer at a club in the Bronx called Sparkle. He was working at Crispy Crust Pizza on Palisade Avenue in Englewood New Jersey, right around the corner from 96 West Street, the home of the Robinson's entertainment empire. Master Gee of The Sugar Hill Gang told The Foundation that an Englewood rapper named Casper from a crew called Sound On Sound (the same crew that Sugar Hill Gang's Wonder Mike belonged to) was originally supposed to be the only rapper on "Rapper's Delight."

"Joey Robinson Jr. was driving and Sylvia was in the passenger seat," he said. "They were driving around Englewood looking for Casper, and they happened to go into Crispy Crust, where Hank was rapping and making pizzas."

He continued, "Sylvia explained that she was looking for rappers to make a record, and asked Hank if he rapped. Hank said yes and hopped in the car to audition, apron full of flour and all. As this is happening, my friend Mark Green sees this and tells Sylvia that I rap, and I happened to be in the area at the time. Sylvia had heard Wonder Mike from a Sound On Sound tape, so we all went back to her house to audition, still thinking that she only wanted one rapper. She was into numerology and said that three was a good number for her, so she took all three of us and named us The Sugar Hill Gang."

Sugar Hill was an affluent section of Harlem that Sylvia admired, and she named her new label Sugar Hill Records. On September 16, 1979 "Rappers Delight" was released and changed the landscape of urban music forever. The record received heavy radio airplay, an unheard of feat for a 15 minute record, and at one point it was selling 50,000 copies a day. A new music genre and label were born. A month or so after the release of "Rappers Delight", the group was on tour and at a stop in Columbia, South Carolina they met a trio of young ladies who made their way backstage. The ladies called themselves The Sequence and they said that they would like to audition for the group, and as their luck would have it, Sylvia was present backstage. A few weeks after the trio performed "Funk You Up" at the audition, Sylvia sent for them and they recorded the song which went Gold, making The Sequence the first female rap group to make a rap record and the first group from what would later be dubbed "The Dirty South" to do so.

Sylvia wasn't the only person with the idea to put rap on records. Bobby Robinson (no relation to Sylvia) of Harlem's Enjoy Records operated Fire, Fury, and Red Robin Records where he released Soul and Blues music. He worked early with Frankie Lymon and released some of Gladys Knight's first hits. Like Sylvia, Bobby heard rap music all around him. His son Ronnie (later of The Disco 4) rapped, he heard it the streets and his nephew Gabriel Jackson also known as Spoonie Gee was engaging in this new youthful form of expression. Bobby signed Spoonie and his group - The Treacherous 3, The Disco 4, The Funky Four Plus One, Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5, Kool Kyle The Starchild, The Masterdon Committee and The Fearless 4 to Enjoy. Bobby also hired multi-instrumentalist Pumpkin as the house producer at the label, giving Enjoy a sound that many compare as Stax to Sugar Hill's more refined Motown.

Enjoy's releases were well-crafted, and, in some cases, technically superior to some of Sugar Hill's recordings. What Bobby did not have was the power to get his records on the radio beyond the state of New York. Sylvia had strong relationships with radio, and the ability to record audio, video and create acetates (test recordings) all in-house. Her vision and determination to get rap everywhere that music was played was evident by the fact that she released many early Sugar Hill releases on eight-track. By 1980, less than a year after rap was born on record, she released The Greatest Rap Hits Volume 1, a compilation consisting of her own releases along with songs by Philadelphia's Lady B, The Funky 4 Plus One, Spoonie Gee and rapping radio personality Super Wolf. By 1982, Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, Spoonie Gee, The Funky 4 Plus One,Busy Bee and The Treacherous Three were all signed to Sugar Hill. When Sylvia saw the independent success that Mike & Dave and The Crash Crew had selling "High Power Rap" out of their car trunks, she signed them as well.

Sugar Hill, with its iconic powder blue candy stripe logo sleeve, became a favorite amongst young record buyers and party people, in general. Records like "Freedom" and "It's Nasty" by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, "8th Wonder" and "Apache" by The Sugar Hill Gang, "Funk You Up" and "Funky Sound" by The Sequence and "Breakin' Bells" and "We Wanna Rock" by The Crash Crew, and "Action" and "Gotta Rock" by The Treacherous Three were all popular urban records in recorded rap's early days, but "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five is the only other song on the label that rivals "Rapper's Delight" as far as cultural importance.

"The Message" was written by the late Ed Fletcher (aka Duke Bootee) for himself, but Sylvia felt that the Sugar Hill Gang needed a hit, so she attempted to convince them to record it to no avail.

"She presented 'The Message' to me," Spoonie Gee told The Foundation. "It was too slow and the subject matter was too dark at the time." Originally no one in Grandmaster Flash and The Furious 5, including Melle Mel, wanted to record "The Message"—until Mel told Sylvia that he had a verse from 1979's "Superrappin'" that might fit the song. That verse became the infamous "Child is born" verse; and "The Message" not only dominated the charts and urban radio, it ushered in social commentary in rap music, forever changing the genre.

Sugar Hill Records closed their doors in 1985, but in their short six-year run they achieved many firsts. In addition to releasing the first commercially successful rap record and the first hit rap record to contain social commentary, they also released the first bilingual rap record with 1981's "Disco Dream" by The Mean Machine. The first full-length rap albums were released by Sugar Hill and "Sugar Hill Revue" tours were the first all-rap tours. "The Adventures On The Wheels Of Steel" by Grandmaster Flash was the first record to contain scratch mixing. Sugar Hill Records' 1984 distribution deal with MCA records marked the first time that an independent rap record label was picked up by a major.