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Grandmaster Flash Interesting Facts |
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Whenever we get to do a research on an artist in rap music, we go through the regular music search or better yet rap music search routine. We try to determine who contribute the most to the current state of rap music. One of the main contributors is Grandmaster Flash. His contribution to rap music will be outline more in the following paragraphs and you will see how it effectively allowed rap music to be recognized as diverse.
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See if you can answer these two trivia questions about Grandmaster Flash. |
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Was Grandmaster Flash's group called “the Furious Five”? |
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What was the name of the legendary rapper Grandmaster Flash initially collaborated with? |
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James Todd Smith
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Curtis Jackson
- Kurtis Blow
- Marshall Mathers
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If you answered any of these questions correctly, you could have won prizes by being a member of /. Find out about the benefits of being a member . |
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To a true Grandmaster Flash fan, these questions are fairly simple but when we were compiling our rap music search or researches, we try to incorporate many elements of easy and hard questions. To better help you with questions relating to Grandmaster Flash, we have included his Bio below. Please read and reread because most of the information gathered from our music search will help you in the weekly contest.
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Interesting Facts |
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DJ Grandmaster Flash and his group the Furious Five were hip-hop's greatest innovators, transcending the genre's party-music origins to explore the full scope of its lyrical and sonic horizons. Flash was born Joseph Saddler in Barbados on January 1, 1958; he began spinning records as teen growing up in the Bronx, performing live at area dances and block parties. By age 19, while attending technical school courses in electronics during the day, he was also spinning on the local disco circuit; over time, he developed a series of groundbreaking techniques including "cutting" (moving between tracks exactly on the beat), "back-spinning" (manually turning records to repeat brief snippets of sound), and "phasing" (manipulating turntable speeds) — in short, creating the basic vocabulary which DJs continue to follow even today.
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Scorpio (Eddie Morris), and Rahiem (Guy Williams); the group quickly became legendary throughout New York City, attracting notice not only for Flash's unrivalled skills as a DJ but also for the Five 's masterful rapping, most notable for their signature trading and blending of lyrics. Despite their local popularity, they did not record until after the Sugarhill Gang 's smash "Rapper's Delight" proved the existence of a market for hip-hop releases; after releasing "We Rap More Mellow" as the Younger Generation , Flash and the Five recorded "Superappin'" for the Enjoy label owned by R&B legend Bobby Robinson . They then switched to Sugar Hill, owned by Sylvia Robinson (no relation), after she promised them an opportunity to rap over a current DJ favorite, "Get Up and Dance" by Freedom (the idea had probably been originally conceived by Crash Crew for their single "High Powered Rap").
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That record, 1980's "Freedom," the group's Sugar Hill debut, reached the Top 20 on national R&B charts on its way to selling over 50,000 copies; its follow-up, "Birthday Party," was also a hit. 1981's "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" was the group's first truly landmark recording, introducing Flash's "cutting" techniques to create a stunning sound collage from snippets of songs by Chic , Blondie , and Queen . Flash and the Five 's next effort, 1982's "The Message," was even more revelatory — for the first time, hip-hop became a vehicle not merely for bragging and boasting but for trenchant social commentary, with Melle Mel delivering a blistering rap detailing the grim realities of life in the ghetto. The record was a major critical hit, and it was an enormous step in solidifying rap as an important and enduring form of musical expression.
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Following 1983's anti-cocaine polemic "White Lines," relations between Flash and Melle Mel turned ugly, and the rapper soon left the group, forming a new unit also dubbed the Furious Five . After a series of Grandmaster Flash solo albums including 1985's They Said It Couldn't Be Done , 1986's The Source , and 1987's Da Bop Boom Bang , he reformed the original Furious Five lineup for a charity concert at Madison Square Garden; soon after, the reconstituted group recorded a new LP, 1988's On the Strength , which earned a lukewarm reception from fans and critics alike. Another reunion followed in 1994, when Flash and the Five joined a rap package tour also including Kurtis Blow and Run-D.M.C. A year later, Flash and Melle Mel also appeared on Duran Duran 's cover of "White Lines." Except for a few compilations during the late '90s, Flash was relatively quiet until 2002, when a pair of mix albums appeared: The Official Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on Strut and Essential Mix: Classic Edition on ffrr.
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