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To attract more attention, Flash needed a group. He built a cross-fader system so he could monitor the mix on headphones and switch channels quickly - essentially inventing the turntable/mixer setup used by Hip Hop DJs today. Flash refined and extended the technique, backspinning and “juggling” the break between turntables in rapid fashion. Studying the techniques of other DJs on the local party scene – DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa among them - he built on Herc’s “breakbeat” technique, which involved using two turntables to extend the instrumental breaks of popular dance songs. While learning about electronics at a vocational high school, he was drawn to his father’s record collection and took up DJing. Along with the group the Furious Five, Flash came to national prominence in 1982 with the seminal Rap hit “The Message” – a track that with its chilling social commentary changed Hip Hop forever, retooling its image as good-time “party music” and helping usher in the age of the hardcore MC.īorn Joseph Saddler, the future DJ moved to the Bronx, New York, from Barbados with his family as a child. By backspinning, scratching, mixing and otherwise manipulating vinyl records in search of the “perfect beat,” Flash helped pioneer using the turntable as a musical instrument to create breakbeats, the backbone of any Hip Hop song. So once he understood after all of these records we put out and tours and people were starting to say Grandmaster Flash and not the Furious Five but was associating it with our group that's when he started his shit.Emerging in New York in the late 1970s, Grandmaster Flash is credited as one of the foremost innovators of Hip Hop DJing as an art form. Flash understood branding in our group before us. We were still performing but Melle Mel brought it to our attention. Being young kids we thought “we started as a group lets end like that." We didn’t know that ultimately it would turn around where he would use the brand that we all helped build against us. Scorpio: At that time we were a group, but the biggest mistake the Furious Five made was to leave his name before ours. On their relationship with Grand Master Flash:
GRANDMASTER FLASH AND THE FURIOUS FIVE FULL
Read some excerpts below, and head over to Ya Heard for the full story. It’s an interview that exposes a lot about Grandmaster Flash. He called Grandmaster Flash “the Milli Vanilli of hip-hop,” and even goes on to say that he never actually contributed to any of their biggest songs. Founding member Scorpio spoke to and shared some surprising details about Grandmaster Flash. However, there have been misconceptions about their legacy that are now being brought up today. Over the years, the hip-hop pioneers have disbanded, occasionally coming together for reunion performances. Like the hip-hop forefathers alongside them ( Kool Herc, Afrika Bambattaa and Grand Wizzard Theodore), they were inspiration for many aspiring hip-hop artists to come. They gained prominence off their first single “Freedom,” as well as their magnum opus The Message. The group, who were inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, helped laid the foundation of hip-hop by incorporating turntablism, break-beat deejaying, stage routines and lyricism.
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Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five are one of many legendary acts coming out of New York.