Grandmaster Flash
Grandmaster Flash
Joseph Saddler, better known as Grandmaster Flash, is a Barbadian-born American hip hop recording artist and DJ. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of hip-hop DJing, cutting, and mixing. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, becoming the first hip hop act to be so honored...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRapper
Date of Birth1 January 1958
CityBridgetown, Barbados
CountryUnited States of America
For anybody to say well this is not Hip Hop and that's not Hip Hop, that is not the way the formula was laid down. It was for the people who were going to continue take anything musically and string it along.
Disco B still rolls with me now. He's still doing his thing. He does clubs in different places. He was very instrumental in helping me perfect my craft.
We can even sing off key, but if it's produced properly it can be a hit.
I had love for Breakout; I had love for Bambaataa. I had love for Kool Herc.
Hip Hop has become real constrained. The creative juices and creative flows have been diminished.
All you have to know is mathematically how many times to scratch it and when to let it go - when certain things will enhance the record you're listening to.
But I had two very special people who helped to take my style to the next level. Thank God for my first MC Cowboy and my first student Grand Wizard Theodore, and to go out after creating this art form and finding everyone jamming to it - that too was pretty scary.
Do not let any record company disturb your creative flow. You are not writing for the record company. You're writing for the public.
My father was my first inspiration. He had an incredible stereo and a turntable, and I was told not to touch it. But I'd go back and touch it anyway. I gained a respect for the turntables when I was a kid. When I was a teenager, I came up with a 'cueing system' to work the turntables because they didn't have it at that time.
I was a quiet, nerdy kid living in the Bronx. I spent most of my teens in my room, taking apart electrical items to figure out how they worked before putting them back together, and listening to the music my four older sisters and parents played.
I knew there was a way to blend records together, but I didn't know how to. This was haunting me when I was in my teens. In my frustration, I decided to start experimenting with electronics. I tested the torque factor on different turntables. I had to figure needles out. See, there are two kinds, elliptical and conical.
The type of mixing that was out then was blending from one record to the next or waiting for the record to go off and wait for the jock to put the needle back on.
We gotta stop fighting amongst each other. I think the only rift should be when take it the stage and try to out perform each other.
For us to keep claiming this isn't Hip Hop and that isn't Hip Hop doesn't make sense to me.