Grandmaster Flash

Born Joseph Saddler on January 1, 1958, in Barbados, Grandmaster Flash took up turntables during his teenage years in the Bronx, where he entertained crowds at neighborhood dances and block parties. While enrolled in daytime electronics courses at technical school, the nineteen-year-old also worked the local disco circuit. There he perfected several novel methods—precise “cutting” between records on the beat, “back-spinning” to loop brief musical fragments, and “phasing” by altering turntable speeds—that together formed the essential toolkit still employed by DJs today.

He first joined forces with a rapper around 1977, pairing briefly with the renowned Kurtis Blow before assembling the Furious Five: Melle Mel (Melvin Glover), Cowboy (Keith Wiggins), Kid Creole (Nathaniel Glover), Mr. Ness, also known as Scorpio (Eddie Morris), and Rahiem (Guy Williams). The ensemble soon dominated New York City stages through Flash’s unmatched dexterity on the decks and the Five’s fluid, interwoven rhymes. Commercial recording opportunities arrived only after the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” demonstrated a viable audience for the style. Under the name Younger Generation the crew issued “We Rap More Mellow,” then recorded “Superappin’” for Enjoy, the imprint run by R&B veteran Bobby Robinson. Sylvia Robinson, no relation to Bobby, lured them to her Sugar Hill label by offering them the chance to rap over the popular Freedom track “Get Up and Dance,” a concept possibly first considered by Crash Crew for “High Powered Rap.”

Issued in 1980, the resulting single “Freedom” climbed into the R&B Top 20 and moved more than 50,000 copies; its successor, “Birthday Party,” likewise charted. The 1981 release “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” proved pivotal, showcasing Flash’s cutting technique in a dense collage woven from excerpts of Chic, Blondie, and Queen. Even more groundbreaking was 1982’s “The Message,” which shifted hip-hop from boastful entertainment toward incisive social critique as Melle Mel vividly portrayed the hardships of inner-city existence. Critics hailed the track, and it helped establish rap as a lasting artistic medium.

After the 1983 anti-drug single “White Lines,” tensions between Flash and Melle Mel escalated; the rapper departed to lead a separate Furious Five lineup. Flash issued three solo albums—1985’s They Said It Couldn’t Be Done, 1986’s The Source, and 1987’s Da Bop Boom Bang—before reuniting the original five members for a Madison Square Garden benefit. The reconstituted group followed with the 1988 album On the Strength, which met with muted enthusiasm. Another gathering occurred in 1994 on a package tour that also featured Kurtis Blow and Run-D.M.C. The next year Flash and Melle Mel guested on Duran Duran’s version of “White Lines.”

Apart from scattered late-’90s compilations, Flash maintained a low profile until 2002, when Strut released The Official Adventures of Grandmaster Flash and ffrr issued Essential Mix: Classic Edition. Throughout the 2000s he continued performing tirelessly as a leading ambassador for the culture. In 2007 he and the Furious Five received induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Two years later he returned with the album The Bridge: Concept of a Culture, featuring appearances by KRS-One, Big Daddy Kane, Q-Tip, and Snoop Dogg among others.