10/10/06
GLOS 3900
First is Forever
Of the holy trinity of Hip Hop innovators: Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Kool Herc and DJ Grandmaster Flash, it is Flash that should receive the most credit for Hip Hop as a form of musical expression. Instead of simply listening to music, Flash analyzed every aspect, elevating his expertise into a science. DJ Grandmaster Flash rightly has the distinction of transforming the DJ from a party thrower into an artist, the turntable from a record player into an instrument, and the MC into a rapper. While DJs came before him, the techniques and style Flash patented revolutionized not just Hip Hop, but the entire music industry. Through his technical wizardry, foresight, and recruitment of gifted rappers to augment his soundscapes, Flash set the tone for Hip Hop’s classic era.
Born in Barbados in 1958, under the name Joseph Saddler, Flash moved to the Bronx carrying with him a love for electronics and electrical devices.[1] He fiddled with these devices taking them apart trying to put them back together in order to find out their components worked. As a result of his tinkering, Flash, by his own admission, “was public enemy number one back then to my mom and my sisters.”[2] Unable to buy the electronics he needed to experiment with, Flash would scour the abandoned lots and cars of his neighborhood hoping to use and revive their discarded parts. Sensing real talent, his mother sent him to Samuel Gompers Vocational High School. Here he learned the significance of resistors, capacitors, meters, and waves, figuring out how to construct an effective sound system. Like many future Hop Hop artists, Flash “transformed obsolete vocational skills from marginal occupations into the raw materials for creativity and resistance.”[3]
Around this time, the now famous jams of DJ Cool Herc, Pete DJ Jones and DJ Grandmaster Flowers revived the Bronx party scene. Rather than partake in the dancing, the drugs, and the women these parties offered, Flash would chill in the back and watch the DJs at work.[4] The music of DJ Kool Herc resonated strongly with Flash, but the effortless style and precision of Pete DJ Jones drew Flash to seek apprenticeship with Jones instead. Employing two turntables and two duplicate sets of records Jones could prolong the songs he was playing. Flash recognized the same concept could be used to combine and extended the breaks he loved from Herc’s musical choices. The concept of precuing the music in his headphones also allowed Flash greater control over his DJing.[5] These early lessons laid the foundation for Flash’s future turntable discoveries.
Spending countless hours in his bedroom, his ears glued to the turntables, Flash created several startling DJing innovations. By using two duplicate copies of the same record, marking the precise start and end of the break with a magic marker, Flash could continually cue and recue the break without lifting the needle. This eliminated the guess work that made Herc’s performances sound sloppy and could transform a break of as little as five seconds, into a continual break lasting minutes.[6] Dubbed the Quick Mix Theory and the Clock Theory by Flash, these techniques changed DJ’s from passive to active actors upon the music.[7] Along with these innovations Flash produced effects like: Cutting (repeating phrases and beats by moving the record back and forth); Back Spinning (another process for repetition involving spinning both records backwards to a beat or phrase; which repeats it); and punch-phrasing (playing parts of a vinyl on one turntable in quick volume surges simultaneously while the other vinyl plays on the other turntable).[8]
While perfecting his DJing techniques and performances aspects over a three year period, Flash kept his innovations largely a secret, exposing them only to a privileged few number of friends and family. Finally in 1975, he decided his musical experiments had waited long enough. Unprepared for and unimpressed with this new sound, the Bronx party crowd refused to dance. Without the vocals of the original songs, the breaks alone were not enough to compel the crowd to dance.[9] Nevertheless, Flash had turned the DJ into a performance artist and turntablism into an art. Later on “Flash was the first to debut track DJing skills like mixing records behind his back or beneath tables, and kicking mixing faders with his feet.”[10] Such performance techniques helped form the arsenal of any modern, good performance DJ.
In the meantime, however; an additional component was needed to drive the crowd and divert attention solely from Flash, vocals. The intricate breaks Flash had perfected changed the nature of the MC, requiring the MC to get a message across to the audience. Flash offered any MC a chance to spit over his beats to wow the crowd as a sort of early precursor to the open mic concept. Certain MCs such as Cowboy, Mele Mel and Kidd Creole were naturals at rocking the mic and driving crowds into a frenzy. These rappers became staples of Grand Master Flash’s sets and pioneered phrases like: “Say ho”, “Throw yo hands in the air, and wave em like ya just don’t care,” and "Clap your hands to the beat!”[11] Nearly every Hip Hop record made since then utilizes at least one of these phrases. Recognizing the importance of interplay between the DJ and the MC, Flash helped choreograph increasingly difficult and intricate shows. Flash explains, “I got ridiculed for a couple of years. ‘You’re the guy that ruins records!’ But all the DJs had to change their style,”[12] Flash and his MCs, now known as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five increased the popularity of the Hip Hop scene, and, of its mecca, the Hip Hop club. Luring audiences away from other major DJs of the time, Flash succeeding in bringing both crews and crowds together for wild battle showdowns, which in turn help Hip Hop’s popularity explode.
Hip Hop’s popularity burst onto the nation’s consciousness with the first commercially successful rap single, Sugar hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.” However, it was Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s album The Message, that vaulted Hip Hop into respectability as an independent form of music. While much of this classic album lends itself towards the familiar party vibe heard in very early Hip Hop, it represents one the first albums to feature exclusively turntablist tracks.[13] For the first time in Hip Hop, attention was diverted away from the actual music and towards the song’s lyrical content. Many future Hip Hop songs drew from “The Message” by reusing its themes of urban dislocation and frustration. Peter Relic reflects, “The tracks on The Message, retain the vigor a music that had yet to be fully commodified; made at a time when Hip Hop was roundly dismissed as a fad, and stand as a monument to what made Hip Hop great in the first place.”[14] Indeed, The Message remains as innovative and fresh as any classic pre-1985 album ever made.
In 1985, Grandmaster Flash recorded another seminal album entitled They Said It Couldn’t Be Done. According to Peter Relic, this album “was one of the earliest Hip Hop releases on a major label, setting the stage for Elecktra’s later greater success with Brand Nubian and Missy Elliot. Furthermore, “it stands as a close to Grandmaster Flash’s initial run as a hip hop original.”[15] While Flash’s pioneering human techniques were generally replaced by mechanical studio effects such as a sampling, these effects sought to mirror the sound and style of Grandmaster Flash. The resurgence of the art of turntablism marked a return to prominence for Flash, as he was given credit for the lengthy number of innovations he had created in order to make Hip Hop music possible. Ever the pioneer, Grandmaster Flash and his group the Furious Five, became the first Hip Hop group nominated for admission into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.[16]
Judging his lengthy career and many stylistic innovations which revolutionized Hip Hop, one can respect Grandmaster Flash’s place within the Holy Trinity of Hip Hop pioneers. His numerous DJing techniques changed the role of the DJ forever, making turntablism an essential element within Hip Hop. His extended break sequences now known as instrumentals allowed the MC to become a rapper, and party slogans to change into important messages. Flash helped bring Hip Hop to the national consciousness and ensure its survival as more than a passing fad. His albums The Message and They Said It Couldn’t Be Done should be required listening for any Hip Hop fan interested in this genre’s origin. His group, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five created much of the current lexicon of Hip Hop and established parameters for Hip Hop performance. Flash’s innovative career continues to influence Hip Hop and in the words of Q-Tip “Keep it movin.”
Bibliography
Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop. New York, NY: Picador, 2005
"Grandmaster Flash Interview." Fresh Air. NPR. WHYY, Atlanta. August 29, 2005
Grandmaster Flash Biography. 2002. Sing365.com. 8 Oct. 2006
Miles, Milo. Grandmaster Flash: Biography. 2004. The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. Rollingstone.com. 8 Oct. 2006 <http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/grandmasterflash/biography.>
Relic, Peter. “Album Liner Notes from The Message.” 2005. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. The Message. Sugar Hill Records, 1982.
Relic, Peter. “Album Liner Notes from They Said It Couldn’t Be Done.” 2005. Grandmaster Flash. They Said It Couldn’t Be Done. Elektra, 1985.
Rose, Tricia. Black Noise. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1994.
[1] Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop. P.112.
[2] NPR “Fresh Air” August 29, 2005
[3] Rose, Tricia. Black Noise. P. 34-35
[4] Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop. P. 112
[5] Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop. P. 112-113
[6] Grandmaster Flash Biography. 2002. Sing365.com.
[7] NPR “Fresh Air” August 29, 2005
[8] Grandmaster Flash Biography. 2002. Sing365.com.
[9] Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop. P. 113
[10] Grandmaster Flash Biography. 2002. Sing365.com.
[11] Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop. P. 113
[12] Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop. P. 114
[13] Miles, Milo. Grandmaster Flash: Biography. 2004. Rollingstone.com
[14] Relic, Peter. “Album Liner Notes from The Message.” 2005.
[15] Relic, Peter. “Album Liner Notes from They Said It Couldn’t Be Done.” 2005
[16] Relic, Peter. “Album Liner Notes from They Said It Couldn’t Be Done.” 2005
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