Happy Birthday Queen of Hip-Hop! All Hail Queen Sylvia

You either love it or you hate it, but most of the songs that make it to Number One today in Billboard are of the hard core hip hop variety. Indeed, every time you hear songs such as "In Da Club," "Crank That," or other title--remember it all started with a woman from New York who founded a record company in 1979 called Sugar Hill Records. Her name was Sylvia Robinson. Most Seventies types remember her as the lady whose deep breaths and moans took her to #3 in 1973 with "Pillow Talk." The song was originally offered to Al Green, who turned it down due to his spiritual convictions, according to Wikipedia.com.

The woman born Sylvia Vanderpool, singer, songwriter, guitarist, turned record executive, on March 6, 1936, got her start back in '57 with a duet she recorded with guitarist and singer Mickey Baker, called "Love is Strange." This song scored very high on the charts that summer. She went on to write hits in the sixties and seventies for acts such as the Moments, who scored in 1970 with Robinson's "Love On a Two Way Street," rerecorded by teen star Stacy Lattisaw, back in 1980.

Her most notable accomplishment, however, was making rap music, or hip hop, as it is called today, a household word. "Rapper's Delight," the Sugar Hill Gang's only hit, was recorded on Sugar Hill Records, a label owned by Ms. Robinson and her late husband Joseph. While the song--which was sampled from Chic's hit, "Good Times"--did not make it very high on the charts--it opened the door for the art form to be taken very seriously. Indeed, even though the first rap artist to go to #1 did not do so until 1990--this group opened doors for other acts to rap. Indeed, Vanilla Ice owes a great debt to her.

Then, in 1995--Coolio hits #1 with "Gangsta's Paradise," sampled from a Stevie Wonder song. It was a song cut for "Dangerous Minds." Its haunting musical arrangements and instrumentation makes it a personal favourite of mine. The lyrics pierce the heart, and actually give you something to think about. It was indeed a far cry from the bling bling that characterizes the stuff we hear today, passing it off as music.