Joseph Robinson and his wife, Sylvia, co-founded Sugar Hill Records, which was based in Englewood. -
The spot on Englewood’s West Street where hip-hop history was made is marked by a “for sale” sign. A chain-link fence blocks the entrance to what is now an empty lot, and a few cars are parked inside.
That’s all that is left of the Sugar Hill recording studio, where the song that introduced rap music to a mainstream audience was recorded in 1979, sweeping Englewood — and the enigmatic members of the Robinson family who ran the company — into the center of a burgeoning music craze with the now-iconic riff, “hip-hop and ya don’t stop.”
