Grandmaster Flash
b. Joseph Saddler, 1 January 1958, Barbados, West Indies, but raised in the Bronx, New York. This pivotal force in early rap music grew up in the South Bronx, studying at Samuel Gompers Vocational Technical High School, spending his leisure time attending DJ parties thrown by early movers such as Grandmaster/DJ Flowers, MaBoya and Peter ‘DJ’ Jones. The latter took him under his wing, and Flash intended to combine Jones' timing on the decks with the sort of records that Kool Herc was spinning. Hence in the early '70s Saddler set about discovering the way to ‘segue’ records (commonly pronounced segway) smoothly together without missing a beat, highlighting the ‘break’—the point in a record where the drum rhythm is isolated or accentuated—and repeating it. With admirable fortitude, Saddler spent upwards of a year in his apartment on 167th Street experimenting. The basis of his technique was to adapt Herc's approach, using two turntables each spinning the same record. He would then interrupt the flow of the disc offering the basic rhythm by overlaying the ‘break’, repeating the process by switching channels on the mixer, as necessary. The complexity and speed of the operation (the second desk would have to be rotated backwards to the beginning of the ‘break’ section) earned him the nickname Flash when he brought the style to his public, owing to the rapid hand movements. However, attention grabbing though this was, the style had not yet quite gelled into what Flash required. He decided, instead, to invite a vocalist to share the stage with him. He worked in this respect with first Lovebug Starski, then Keith Wiggins. Wiggins would eventually come to be known as Cowboy within Grandmaster Flash's Furious Five, in the process becoming one of the first ‘MCs’, delivering rhymes to accompany Flash's turntable wizardry. Flash continued in the block/park party vein for a considerable time, often illegally by hooking up his sound system to an intercepted mains cable until the police arrived. One person, at least, saw some commercial potential in his abilities, however. Ray Chandler stepped up and invited Flash to allow him to promote him, and charge an entrance fee (previous hip hop events had always been free). Initially incredulous at the thought that anyone would actually pay to see them, Flash nevertheless accepted. Flash put together a strong line-up of local talent to support him: Grandmaster Melle Mel (b. Melvin Glover) and his brother Kid Creole (b. Nathaniel Glover) joining Cowboy, this line-up initially titled Grandmaster Flash And The 3 MCs. Two further rappers, Duke Bootee (b. Ed Fletcher) and Kurtis Blow subsequently joined, but were eventually replaced by Rahiem (b. Guy Todd Williams, ex-Funky Four) and Scorpio (b. Eddie Morris, aka Mr Ness). The Zulu Tribe was also inaugurated, with the express purpose of acting as security at live events: with Flash popularising the rap format, rival MCs sprang up to take their mentor and each other on. These head to heads often had the result of garnering the participants equipment as prizemoney. A crew who were not popular could expect to see their turntables and sound system rehabilitated for their troubles. Just as Jamaican sound system owners like Duke Reid and Coxsone Dodd had done in the '60s, Flash, Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa would hide their records from prying eyes to stop their ‘sound’ being pirated. Similarly, record labels were removed to avoid identifying marks. The Furious Five, meanwhile, made their debut proper on September 2nd, 1976. Shortly afterwards they released their first record, Super Rappin', for Enjoy. Although hugely popular within the hip hop fraternity, it failed to make commercial inroads, and Flash tried again with We Rap Mellow (as the Younger Generation on Brass) and Flash To The Beat (as Flash And The Five for Bozo Meko). However, it would be Joe Robinson Jnr. of Sugarhill Records who finally bought out their Enjoy contract. He had seen the Grandmaster in action at Disco Fever, ‘hip hop's first home’, which had opened in the Bronx in 1978. His wife, Sylvia, wrote and produced their subsequent record, a relationship which kicked off with Freedom. On the back of a major tour, certainly the first in rap's embryonic history, the single sold well, earning a gold disc. The follow-up Birthday Party was totally eclipsed by Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel, the first rap record to use samples, and a musical tour de force, dramatically showcasing the Flash quickmixing and scratching skills. Memorable enough, it too was overshadowed when Sugarhill brought the band in to record one of Robinson's most memorable compositions (written in tandem with Bootee): The Message. The single, with its daunting, apocalyptic rumblings, significantly expanded not just rap but black music's boundaries, though the Furious Five had been less convinced of its worth when it was first offered to them in demo form. In just over a month the record went platinum. In the wake of the record's success Flash enquired of his Sugarhill bosses why no moneys were forthcoming. When he did not receive satisfactory explanation, he elected to split, taking Kid Creole and Rahiem with him, signing to Elektra Records. The others, headed by Melle Mel, would continue as Melle Mel and the Furious Five, scoring nearly instantly with White Lines (Don't Do It). Bearing in mind the subject matter of Mel's flush of success, it was deeply ironic that Flash was now a freebase cocaine addict. In the '80s Flash's name largely retreated into the mists of rap folklore until he was reunited with his Furious Five in 1987 for a Paul Simon hosted charity concert in New York, and talk of a reunion in 1994 eventually led to the real thing. Back with the Furious Five he hosted New York's WQHT Hot 97 show, Mic Checka, spinning discs while prospective rappers rang up to try to pitch their freestyle rhymes down the telephone. Unfortunately the reunion would not include Cowboy, who died on 8 September 1989 after a slow descent into crack addiction. Flash also helped out on Terminator X's SUPER BAD set, which brought together many of the old school legends.