Grandmaster Flash: His Life, His Beats
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Artist:
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Album:My Life, My Beats
This past week while I was in New York doing some apartment hunting, my roommate and I pooled our collective no money and decided to spend it well by seeing hip hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash give a free interview, book signing and demonstration on turntablism at the Tribeca Barnes & Noble in support of his new autobiography, My Life, My Beats.
Over a period of three and a half years, in a tiny New York apartment, with his dog as his only audience, Flash invented turntablism/scratching as we know it today. By literally making a crayon line on a record marking a specific point in a song, Flash was able to move the record in a backward motion for a certain number of rotations and know that the same number of rotations forward would bring the song back to the same point. Without having to lift the tone arm to do any of this, Flash could keep a steady beat—one that folks could continuously dance to and emcees could easily rap over.
Now, that might sound like a simple concept, but Grandmaster Flash deserves some weighty recognition for being the first person to have figured it out. Remember, too, that at some point someone had to realize that a tightly wound string will resonate at different pitches when plucked at different lengths.
Once Flash got up and walked us through a five-minute version of those three and a half years, another realization hit—easy to understand does not mean easy to do. Watch him doing a demo at this year's NAMM festival to see what I mean.
To paraphrase Flash when asked about the initial public reactions to turntablism, Flash said that, "to be called an idiot [for playing records backwards] ended up being the ultimate compliment." DJing was "not just great for me," he said, "it was great for hip-hop."
Flash, who refers to himself as "a scientist," is the only DJ to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I'll leave you with a clip of Flash speaking about his life and his book.
Comments (3)
oooh - yr so lucky to have seen this in person! thanks for following up with a great post. i love learning more about the intricacies of those early hip hop days in NYC.
AHHHHHHHHHHHH - how did I miss this but I did not return to NYC until last Saturday.
Thank you for a wonderful re-introduction to one of my favorite Hip Hop musicians who is a master at making the beats next to Doug E Fresh.
I have to get his book!
Glad to see the originators getting their stories told. People don't believe me when I share stories like you have because unfortunately the stories are not being written or preserved. You rock, incurablyerin!
I just saw Grandmaster Flash on Friday night at the Fuji Rock Festival. I've never been to a DJ/hip hop show before but I decided to give it a bash. It was 2:00am and I'd been at the festival since 11:00am, was tired, hot and sweaty so I just planned to stand at the back and listen for a while.
GMF came on and by the end of the first song, we were in the mosh pit jumping up and down with a couple of thousand other very happy people. He really pulled everyone in together and created a great atmosphere. It was one of the highlights of the festival for me.
I'll definitely check out his book, thanks.