Sugar Hill Publishing

Sugar Hill was a seminal late ‘70s and early ‘80s rap/hip hop label run by husband and wife team Sylvia and Joe Robinson, with funding courtesy the notorious Morris Levy, owner of Roulette Records. Sylvia had previously had success as a R&B and soul singer and had been recording since the early ‘50s. She took on the role of CEO and was the driving force behind the two landmark singles in the hip-hop genre: ‘Rappers Delight’ by Sugarhill Gang and ‘The Message’ by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five. Named after the culturally rich Sugar Hill area of Harlem, the label brought underground music into the public area and revolutionised the industry by popularising the technique of re-using existing musical compositions, a practice that soon widely became known as ‘sampling’. Signings included all female/rap group The Sequence, featuring the teenage Angie Stone, Funky Four Plus One, Treacherous Three and The West Street Mob. Many of the releases were arranged and produced in-house by Clifton ‘Jiggs’ Chase, whilst engineer Steve Jerome and producer George Kerr also made major contributions to the label. Levy was bought out in the early ‘80s and the label enjoyed a few years of mainstream success, pioneering music video, helping introduce the cassette single and pushing MTV into introducing rap/hip-hop programming through ‘Yo! MTV Raps’.
Sugar Hill Publishing was born in accordance to that.