Robinson achieved success as a performer on two R&B chart toppers: as half of Mickey & Sylvia with the 1957 single "Love Is Strange", and her solo record "Pillow Talk" in 1973.

[7] Robinson is credited as the driving force behind two landmark singles in the hip hop genre: "Rapper's Delight" (1979) by the Sugarhill Gang,[8] and "The Message" (1982) by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, both of which she produced.

After several more releases including the modestly successful "There Oughta Be a Law", Mickey & Sylvia split up in 1958 and she later married Joseph Robinson.

"I paid for the session, taught Tina the song; that's me playing guitar," Robinson said in a 1981 interview with Black Radio Exclusive.

Within a couple of years and with a new lineup, the group scored their biggest hit with "Love on a Two-Way Street" (1970), which Sylvia co-wrote and produced with Bert Keyes and (uncredited) lyrics by Lezli Valentine.

'"[18] Robinson recorded four solo albums on the Vibration subsidiary[19] and had other R&B hits including "Sweet Stuff" and "Pussy Cat".

The company was named after the culturally rich Sugar Hill area of Harlem, an affluent African-American neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City, known as a hub for artists and performers in the early and mid-1900s.

In order for Rolling Stone to compose this list, the publication asked 33 different artists and experts from every genre of music including Busta Rhymes, Boots Riley, from the Coup, Mike Diamond, from the Beastie Boys and Talib Kweli.

[25] Grandmaster Flash stated, "And when that project was on the slate to be done--The Message, I'm talking about--she would ask us for a period of time about doing a record having to do with the real life things that happen in the 'hood.

[26] Sugar Hill Records folded in 1985 due to changes in the music industry, the competition of other hip-hop labels such as Profile and Def Jam and also financial pressures.

[33] Robinson died on the morning of September 29, 2011, at the age of 76, at Meadowlands Hospital in Secaucus, New Jersey due to congestive heart failure.

[39][40] In October 2015, Warner Bros. announced that it would be the studio producing the film, and that Malcolm Spellman and Carlito Rodriguez, two of the writers on Empire, were writing the script.