Album cover of The Official Adventures of Grandmaster Flash

DJ Grandmaster Flash (born Joseph Saddler on January 1, 1958 in Barbados) is a hip hop musician and DJ; one of the pioneers of hip-hop DJing, cutting, and mixing. 1958 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Barbados, or as known by the British Little England, is an Independent island nation situated on the boundary of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. ... Hip hop music is a style of popular music. ... For other meanings of DJ, see DJ (disambiguation). ... Hip hop is a cultural movement that began amongst urban African American youth in New York and has since spread around the world. ... For other meanings of DJ, see DJ (disambiguation). ... In hip hop music, cutting is a disc jockey technique, originated by DJ Grandmaster Flash, which is manually cueing up duplicate copies of the same record in order to play the same passage, cutting back and forth between them. ... Audio mixing is used in sound recording, audio editing and sound systems to balance the relative volume and frequency content of a number of sound sources. ...

Saddler's family migrated to the United States, and he grew up in the Bronx. He became involved in the earliest New York DJ scene, attending parties set up by early luminaries. Learning from Pete Jones and Kool Herc, he used duplicate copies of a single record and two turntables but added a dextrous manual edit with a mixer to promote the break (a point of isolated drum rhythm) - the ordinary playing of the record would be interrupted to overlay the break, the break could be repeated by using the mixer to switch channels while the second record was spun back. The speed and dexterity needed showed why Saddler was called Flash, although he got the nickname in school due to the fact that he hung around with another guy named Gordon. He also invented the technique initially called cutting, which was developed by Grand Wizard Theodore into scratching (AMG). The Bronx is one of the five boroughs of United States. ... Categories: People stubs | Hip hop musicians | Hip hop DJs | 1955 births ... In telecommunications a mixer is a frequency mixer. ... A break is an instrumental or percussion section or interlude during a song derived from or related to stop_time being a break from the main parts of the song. ... Grand Wizard Theodore is an African American hip hop DJ, known for his innovations in scratching and needle drops, which he invented (AMG), and other techniques. ... Scratching is a DJ or turntablist technique originated by Grand Wizard Theodore, an early hip hop DJ from New York (AMG). ...

Flash played illegal parties and also worked with rappers such as Kurtis Blow and Lovebug Starski. He formed his own group in the late 1970s, after promptings from Ray Chandler. The initial members were Cowboy (Keith Wiggins), Melle Mel (Melvin Glover) and Kid(d) Creole (Nathaniel Glover) making Grandmaster Flash & the 3 MCs. Two other rappers briefly joined, but they were replaced more permanently by Rahiem (Guy Todd Williams, previously in the Funky Four) and Scorpio (Eddie Morris, also used the name Mr. Ness) to create Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five. Soon gaining recognition for their skillful raps, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five pioneered MCing, freestyle battles, and invented some of the staple phrases in MCing. They performed at Disco Fever in the Bronx beginning in 1978. Kurtis Blow, (born Curtis Walker on August 9, 1959), is one of the most influential early rappers and hip hops first mainstream star. ... Lovebug Starski is an American hip hop artist and one of the pioneers of the form. ... Melle Mel (born Melvin Glover in New York City, New York) is a hip-hop musician, one of the pioneers of old school hip hop as a member of Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five with his brother Kid Creole. ... Kid Creole (also spelled Kidd Creole, born Nate Glover in New York City, New York) is a hip hop musician, one of the pioneers of old school hip hop as a member of the Sugar Hill group Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five with his brother Melle Mel. ... A Master of Ceremonies or MC is the host of a staged event or other performance. ... Freestyle battles are usually contests (though they can occur spontaniously) where rappers battle each other in the form of improvised raps. ... Events January January 1 - The Copyright Act of 1976 takes effect, making sweeping changes to United States copyright law. ...

Signed to Sugar Hill Records in 1980 by Joe Robinson, they released numerous singles, gaining a gold disc for "Freedom", and also toured. The classic "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel," released in 1981 was the best display of their skills, but it was their least successful single at the time. The group's most significant hit was "The Message" (1982), which went platinum in less than a month. Flash sued Sugar Hill in 1983 over the non-payment of royalties, and in 1984 the group split between Flash and Mel before disintegrating entirely. Flash, Kid Creole and Rahiem signed to Elektra Records while the others continued as "Melle Mel & the Furious Five". They reformed in 1987 for a charity concert, to release one album and then fall apart again. There was another reunion, of a kind, in 1994, although Cowboy had died in 1989 from the effects of his crack cocaine addiction. Sugar Hill Records was founded in 1974 by husband and wife Joe and Sylvia Robinson with financial funding of Morris Levy, boss of Roulette Records. ... In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of sales albums and singles have made. ... Elektra Records is a record label started in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickholt, who both invested $300. ... 1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1994 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... Cocaine is a crystalline alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. ...

Discography

• 1982: The Message
• 1983: Greatest Messages
• 1985: They Said It Couldn't Be Done
• 1985: Stepping Off
• 1986: The Source
• 1987: Ba-dop-boom-bang
• 1988: On The Strength (reunion album)
• 1998: Flash is Back
• 2002: The Official Adventures of Grandmaster Flash

External link

• Grandmaster Flash (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:8l6omp939f8o) at the All Music Guide
• Grandmaster Cuts Faster (http://www.chuckthewriter.com/gmf5.pdf), a PDF article about Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, originally published in Goldmine magazine, written by columnist Chuck Miller [10 page PDF]

The All Music Guide (AMG) is a globally comprehensive metadata database about music owned by All Media Guide. ...

Samples

• Download sample of "The Message"