Sugar Hill Records  

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"In 1983 Grandmaster Melle Mel releases "White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)", copying the bassline of "Cavern". 99 Records sues Sugar Hill Records for the similarities. However, when Sugar Hill is ordered to pay $660,000 in damages, it declares bankruptcy shortly after." --Sholem Stein


"In 1981, Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force, together with producer Arthur Baker, paid tribute with [to Kraftwerk with] "Planet Rock," which used the melody from "Trans-Europe Express" over the rhythm from "Numbers." In the process they created electro and moved rap out of the Sugarhill age." --"Machine Soul: A History Of Techno" (1993) by Jon Savage

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Sugar Hill Records was a record label specializing in hip hop music that was founded in 1979 by husband and wife Joe and Sylvia Robinson with Milton Malden and financial funding of Morris Levy, the owner of Roulette Records.

Contents

History

Joe Robinson had parlayed a music publishing company that he established years before in New York into the All Platinum, Stang, and Turbo record labels prior to establishing the Sugar Hill label. Artists included his wife Sylvia, of Mickey and Sylvia ("Love is Strange") fame, The Moments (Love on a Two Way Street), Brother to Brother, Shirley and Company ("Shame Shame Shame"), Linda Jones, Jack McDuff and Chuck Jackson.

Beginnings

The Sugar Hill label's first record was "Rapper's Delight" (1979) by The Sugarhill Gang, which was also the first Top 40 hip hop single. Afterwards The Sequence, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Funky Four Plus One, Crash Crew, Treacherous Three, and the West Street Mob, joined the label. Sugar Hill's in-house producer and arranger was Clifton "Jiggs" Chase. The in-house recording engineer was Steve Jerome. Al Goodman, leader of The Moments, ran the show and George Kerr was a major producer. Joe and Sylvia's sons Joey and Leland were also active in the business.

Success

In the early 1980s, the Robinsons bought Levy out. They enjoyed several years of success. They also pioneered the music video, with Sylvia producing several and a young Spike Lee making his first music video for the song "White Lines" (performed by Melle Mel and The Furious Five). Joe Robinson was innovative in the business end. He was the first to introduce a cassette single. He also worked with TVS Television Network executive Tom Ficara to produce the Fresh Groove TV series to feature these music videos when MTV would not run them. The success of Fresh Groove forced MTV to establish Yo! MTV Raps,Template:Citation needed and rap music videos were now on a mainstream cable network.

Sold out

A controversial distribution deal with MCA Records ended up in protracted litigation, and, finally, the label closed down in 1986. In 1995, Rhino Records purchased all the released and unreleased masters owned by the Sugar Hill label, although they are controlled by BMG/Sanctuary Records outside of North America. In 2002, Sugar Hill Studios in Englewood, New Jersey were destroyed by a fire. "Rapper's Delight," "The Message," and many other Sugar Hill hits were recorded there.


See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Sugar Hill Records" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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