Sylvia and her son Joey were on a night-time mission: Driving around Englewood, New Jersey, searching for the world’s first rap group. They stopped at a pizza shop where they met “Big Bank Hank” Jackson. That’s when the Sugarhill Gang was born.
Sylvia Robinson was a hit singer and songwriter in the 1960s and 70s. When Al Green rejected her song “Pillow Talk” because it was too sexually provocative, she recorded it herself. In 1973 it broke records and is now remembered as one of the first songs where a Black woman sang with sexual confidence.
After her record label went bankrupt in the late 1970s, Robinson continued her career in music but never got the credit she deserved. But she refused to be defeated and resolved to make the Sugarhill Gang before anyone had even heard of rap.
In 1979, the Sugarhill Gang would release “Rapper’s Delight,” the world’s first hip-hop record. It sold over a million copies, pushing hip-hop mainstream. Robinson had birthed an industry, and she would bring in other acts like GrandMaster Flash and the Furious Five to hip-hop greatness.
Black creativity has the power to change the world. We can never predict exactly how or when creativity will manifest itself in us; that's why it is important to never give up on yourself or our community.