, whose “Sucker MCs” marked the overthrow of the Sugar Hill sound on the streets. That Sylvia never heard Run-D.M.C.’s demo owed everything to her bad reputation among up-and-coming managers like Russell Simmons. In retrospect, the deals that second-generation hip-hop labels like Tommy Boy, Profile, and Simmons and Rick Rubin’s Def Jam offered weren’t structurally much better, creating, in time, their share of tortuous lawsuits.
Stiff competition, a disintegrating roster and cash-flow problems prompted the Robinsons to cast about for corporate partners. But their reputation preceded them -- at Columbia, an internal memo cast them as “the black mafia.” It was, in fact, the mob to whom they turned to facilitate a pressing-and-distribution deal with MCA in the personage of a wiseguy named Sal Pisello.
“Good friends,” in fact, was the name of Sylvia’s first solo venture. She launched Bon Ami Records in 1989 with an album from an East Orange, N.J., rap group called The New Style. It tanked, but the act resurfaced two years later as-- proof that Sylvia still had an eye for talent. She rebranded again as Diamond Head Records in 1994, but by then hip-hop had creatively left her behind.
Sylvia died of heart failure on Sept. 29, 2011. Hundreds attended her homegoing at Englewood’s Community Baptist Church. Here she was still royalty -- her casket borne in a white carriage by two ivory-colored horses, the altar bedecked with a perfect floral replication of the Sugar Hill logo.
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