GRANDMASTER FLASH / “The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel”

Fab Five Freddy told me everybody’s fly The DJ’s spinning, I said, “My, my” Flash is fast, Flash is cool… —Debbie Harry, from Blondie’s “Rapture”
grandmaster flash 05.jpg The first time I heard “The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel,” I was probably eleven or twelve years old. I still remember my reaction. I thought, “He changed the record! He changed the record!” Today, that thought probably sounds both naïve and insignificant. Modern production techniques ‘change the record’ so much that it’s getting hard to tell the difference between the record and the changes. It’s as if the process has become the product. But come back with me to 1981. No one outside of the New York area had ever heard the sound of a record being scratched. Not on purpose at least. grandmaster flash 08.jpg Twenty-one-year-old Joseph ‘Grandmaster Flash’ Saddler was out there in uncharted waters, in unmapped territory. When he starts cutting up Spoonie Gee’s “Monster Jam” (“You say… you say… you say…”), he wasn’t doing something that countless other DJs had done, he was doing something that very, very few human beings had ever done. Add in that he was doing it in the recording studio with the tape rolling? Hell, he was doing something that no human being had ever done. And Flash did it all live. It would’ve been easy, and probably undetectable, to use tape edits, but Flash insisted on doing it live in the studio, in one unbroken take. The way he figured it, if he couldn’t do it in the studio, how was he going to do it live on stage? It took him something like fifteen takes to get it right, but the end result, this record that hip-hop heads have been loving for all these years, is 100% live.
* * *
grandmaster flash 06.jpg I hear so much in this record, although I’ll admit from the beginning that a lot of what I hear is coming from me, not the record. The first thing I hear is confidence. Flash comes out scratching right from the beginning. It’s like a heavyweight boxer starting the first round swinging knockout punches. So then again, maybe it’s not confidence I hear. Maybe it’s fear. I’m thinking of a George Foreman quote I once read where George said he used to try so hard to knock people out fast because he was afraid to get hit. Anyway, call it confidence or call it fear, either way, Flash comes out smoking. Think about how the record begins. It’s 1981. The biggest hit of the year is Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical.” You place the needle on the vinyl expecting music. Instead you get…. What do you get exactly? I wonder how many people lifted the dust cover on their record player and leaned in close to make sure the needle wasn’t skipping. I wonder how many people thought those crazy sounds captured in the vinyl might mess up their needle the same way accidentally scratching a record could. (I know I did.) The next thing I hear is meticulousness, that is, organization and arrangement. “Adventures” has this wild on-the-fly feel to it, as if Flash went through the entire process of inspiration, selection and execution mere minutes before the record was actually pressed. To the contrary, Flash carefully planned every moment. Chic’s “Good Times” is the chorus, the hook. Flash knew he had to give the listener something recognizable to hang on to. And unless he wanted his record to turn into some kind of technical seminar, he knew he had to keep the beat going. “Good Times” was an obvious choice not just because the bassline is so catchy, but also because both the Chic original and the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” (which was based on a replayed version of “Good Times”) were recent and huge hits. Flash uses all the other records—Blondie’s “Rapture,” Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust,” his own group’s “Birthday Party”—as verses or breaks. He even includes a big finish, repeatedly spinning a half-second of Melle Mel (“Flash is…”) into a quarter-second of Chic (“…good”). It was the first recorded example of a DJ ‘talking with his hands.’ “Flash is good,” the record says. No shit. I also hear anger. One of the strangest stories in hip-hop is how the most recognizable name of all the old school artists, Grandmaster Flash, is best known for a record he had nothing to do with. I just heard an interview with Flash where the interviewer spends two or three oblivious minutes raving about how great “The Message” is until Flash finally says, “Thanks.” That’s it. The interviewer kind of got the point and moved on. What the interviewer didn’t know is how the move from the parks to the recording studios took the status, the power and the importance away from the DJ. In the parks and in the clubs, the DJ was the central figure. He was the man with the records at a time when the man with the records was king. Back then, hip-hop wasn’t about making statements. It wasn’t about negativity or positivity or political statements of any kind. It was all about dancing and having a good time. The DJ was the party-starter. Rappers were there primarily to highlight the DJ. They were sidemen. On wax, the situation was reversed. The MCs were the center of attention. The DJ was in the background. And actually, even that overstates it. Of the many records on the Sugar Hill label that bear Flash’s name, only two (that I can think of) actually feature him at all. But the thing is, Sugar Hill needed Flash’s name. The name ‘Grandmaster Flash’ was the selling point, even if the man the name belonged to was being pushed aside. So when the little kid asks the grandfather, “What else happened?” and Flash jumps in scratching “The Birthday Party” so hard you can practically see sparks flying, maybe he’s thinking about how insane it is that he’s an afterthought on his own records. Maybe he’s thinking about how his boss Sylvia Robinson is trying to get rid of him yet somehow keep his name. Maybe he’s wondering if this is the last time he’ll cut up a piece of vinyl in a recording studio. Whatever Flash was thinking, those sounds he gets out of his turntable after the grandfather says ‘It went pretty much like this’ remain unbelievable. The other thing I hear is showmanship. Flash’s reputation in hip-hop was built not necessarily on being the first (Kool Herc is the acknowledged ‘father of hip-hop’ and Grandwizard Theodore actually invented scratching) or the most popular (DJ Breakout and the Funky Four might’ve had him there) or even the cat with the most records (Afrika Bambaataa had that designation on lock), instead Flash was respected for simply being the best. In 1981, when Flash entered the recording studio, he brought with him not just his three turntables and a crateful of records, but also a flair for the dramatic and the skill to back it up. Like when he drops in an excerpt from a Flash Gordon cartoon (“The official adventures of Flash!”), scratches “Good Times” to the beat of “Another One Bites The Dust” (1:04), or demonstrates a new innovation of his, something we’d eventually call beat-juggling (manipulating two copies of the same beat to create a new beat, starting at 0:34 and 4:43). grandmaster flash 10.jpg But the biggest thing I remember about “The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five” was how proud I was. A couple years earlier, Fab 5 Freddy (fast-talking urban hustler, all-around man-about-town and future host of Yo! MTV Raps) had taken Debbie Harry (lead singer of the popular new-wave band Blondie) to the Bronx to see Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five in action. Debbie responded with “Rapture,” a half-send up, half-tribute to hip-hop culture that became a number one pop hit. In that song, Debbie mentioned Flash by name (“Flash is fast / Flash is cool”). In 1980, hip-hop was still virtually unknown, so every time “Rapture” played, every time Debbie Harry said Flash’s name, it was like a semi-secret introduction to this new thing that was happening in the Bronx. Then came “The Adventures” and we finally found out exactly what this new thing was. It was a thing so cool, so futuristic, so now, that the guy Debbie Harry was singing about, this guy named Flash that we’d all heard of but had never seen, had somehow taken her voice out of her record and put it on his record. And not just that, he proved what Debbie was saying about him was true by making her repeat what she’d said about him not once, not twice, but three times in a row. “Flash is fast” (fader off, backspin, fader on), “flash is fast” (fader off, backspin again, fader on), “flash is fast” (let the record play). And the whole time, all I kept thinking was: “He changed the record! He changed the record!”
* * *
Like almost all old school hip-hop, “The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel” was originally released on 12” vinyl. Today, it’s available on countless CD compilations, including Roots Of Rap (which also features 23 other old school classics). Check it out. —Mtume ya Salaam
           …And You Don’t Stop         
…cause the beat goes on. And on. And. On.
***
CONTEXT: Mtume is being modest. He knows at least ten times more than he is saying here. Moreover, he’s not referencing something he read in a book somewhere, he’s referencing something he wrote in a [not yet] published book called The Art of Rap [aka AOR]. AOR is a history of recorded rap. Mtume has been working on this for at least ten years. Deep research went into AOR including HOURS of conversations with some of the originators, especially Grandmaster Flash’s crew. So when Mtume says such and such happened, he’s not guessing nor speculating. I’m just putting some of this stuff in context, just so you’ll know.
***
grandmaster flash 16.jpg
I want to make it clear to people that Hip-Hop started with the DJ. I'm coming over there with this frame of mind: Before I was famous, before I had a record deal, before I had an MC crew, before I had money, there were these years that nobody knew what this was or understood what it was that I was doing and it almost could have possibly not made it because so many people misunderstood this thing I was doing on the turntables through mixing rock, jazz blues and all things one behind another on time. So I’m going to try and recreate the struggling years and I’m coming as a teacher/entertainer. That’s how I’m coming. I’m not coming to force anything on anybody. I'm just going to show you how we did it from page one. There are so many things from a public perspective that I look at in magazines, radio or TV that is coming from the middle of the book. I said the only way I will do this tour is if I can start from page one and show you guys the struggling years on stage. Live. Im going to take you guys from ’74 to 2003. —Grandmaster Flash
***
grandmaster flash 14.jpg
"What I've found appealing is the fact that Hip Hop can take from any other genre of music, recreate it, reform it, rearrange it and put poetry over the top of it. That's Hip Hop. That was a positive thing for it. Now, as for what I don't like [about hip-hop], I'll try to explain this real carefully. Me [Flash], Bambaataa and Kool Herc planted this seed. This seed was a seed to a tree. This tree had a massive trunk and this trunk had branches and leaves. The leaves symbolize different subject matter that we can speak on. If you think about the history of Hip Hop we've had artists who can talk about everything from socially significant ideas to something as cool as sneakers. There was a time when all these various subject matters were utilized. But what has happened, we as Hip Hoppers are not fully utilizing this tree. At this point in time, I just feel that this tree is leaning. By that I mean, I think we are putting too much weight on one side of the tree, when this particular genre of music allows us to talk about many things."
Davey D: Why do you think this has happened? "I think the music business plays a big part. Let's say we have two record company's which I'll call 'Company Left' and 'Company Right'. Let's say Company Left has an artist with a hit record. Company Right would rather come up with a record that sounds like Company Left as opposed to allowing the creative flow of the artist to come up with something just as comparable. If you think about my era to throughout the 80's, you had anybody from Eric B & Rakim who's subject matter was totally different from Chuck D, who's subject matter was totally different from LL's, who's subject matter was totally different from KRS-One. We were basically bombing the airwaves and the record companies could not figure out how and why. What has happened is that to some degree they have taken an attitude where they don't listen to demos of diverse subject matters. They're looking for demos like the record the guy on the left just did. Hip Hop has become real constrained. The creative juices and creative flows have been diminished." —Davey D Interview with Grandmaster Flash
***
DEFINITION OF HIP HOP: I know about the elements of Hip Hop, but I’m down with Grandmaster Flash and his definition, which focuses on the process of creating Hip Hop music. At last I understand exactly what Mtume was saying about beats and lyrics. All the other stuff is all the other stuff and not the specific process of creating Hip Hop music. The Davey D interview is important also for the understanding of battling and live performance of the music. [Word to the wise: read the Davey D interview.] Most of what passes for [or is presented, i.e. marketed, as] Hip Hop is either recorded Rap or makes use of recorded Rap as part of or all of what the industry means by Hip Hop. I am not saying other definitions of Hip Hop are wrong, I’m just saying Grandmaster Flash’s emphasis on the music appeals to me as a way to understand Hip Hop as a genre of music that focuses on creative amalgamation. In this context, Hip Hop’s power and essence is a result not of the source materials themselves (i.e. the various songs, beats, sounds that are sampled, extracted, mixed, manipulated, etc.) but rather the power and essence is in “how” the various elements are put together. Flash is clear that the role of the DJ has been diminished in terms of the DJ as the creator of the beats. The producer and engineer now do in the studio or on a computer what DJs like Grandmaster Flash used to do live in the parks and at parties. Moreover, the DJs made music in real time whereas the producer and engineers work sometimes for “years” to produce their music. That observation is simply an observation and identification of the differences between Grandmaster Flash’s approach and the approach of the music industry.  My observation is not a judgment about one way of producing music being better than the other. You’ve got to give props to Grandmaster Flash for originating the Hip Hop process and being able to do it live. At the same time, we’ve got to appreciate the serious developments that have occurred using studio equipment and/or computers.
***
dxt 02.jpg Technology enhances the craft, but it doesn’t make them musicians. And if they’re not careful, it can actually stop them from becoming good musicians. Whether it’s playing a guitar or keyboard or approaching a turntable as the instrument it truly is, what matters most is always the craft of making good music.” —GrandMixer DXT
***
In terms of recordings “Wheels of Steel” is genesis (i.e. “the old testament”) but the first disc of the new testament is Herbie Hancock’s 1983 recording “Rockit” from Hancock’s album Future Shock. On the turntables was Grand Mixer DXT (bka Grand Mixer D.St and aka Derek Howells). The significance of this recording was it employed a DJ on turntables outside of a Hip Hop context, thus giving greater visibility and legitimacy to turntables as a serious musical instrument. Generations of turntablists were inspired by “Rockit” and credited this track with creating a revolution. Of course, this must all be considered in context. As a result of Hancock’s name and reputation combined with the marketing push of Columbia records, “Rockit” was heard around the world and thus reached literally millions more people than did “Wheels of Steel.” dxt 01.jpg DXT calls the turntable a “turnfiddle.” DXT is a musician who has studied and mastered the craft of making music with a turntable.
When I first started playing the turntable, I was thinking of Ella’s improvisational scats. Rhythmically, though, my feel as a drummer was the real key. When I’m scratching, I’m thinking as a percussionist about time and hitting all the pockets between the notes of a song. I can make complete phrases and speak with it. I can actually say something with a turnfiddle and make phrases and articulate it within a song. —GrandMixer DXT
***
Oddly enough, although Hip Hop started with the DJ and then the MC (who actually was a later addition to the DJ) became the focal point, the reality is that Hip Hop as a musical genre consists of two parts. 1. Beats and 2. Lyrics. Hip Hop, as a musical genre, is rapping in syncopation with a beat.
***
Mtume, remember that time you came home after a Mantronix concert raving about what he did “live”—not just scratching but actually sampling live sounds and mixing on the stage while doing a song? Why don’t you include a Mantronix  song in this section of Grandmaster Flash and Grandmixer DXT? —Kalamu ya Salaam         A general rule of thumb         To answer your last question first, Mantronix is of a different era than Flash and D.St. These days, it seems like people consider everything before the Golden Age (meaning, before Rakim, K.R.S.-One and Chuck D) to be 'Old School.' But if you actually look into the history, you'll realize that's nonsense. When cats like Run-D.M.C. and L.L. Cool J came out, they made a name for themselves by dissing the Old School groups. Run and D used to say, "Not five, not four, not three / Just two." They were saying they weren't like the so-called 'Number Crews,' people like the Furious Five, the Funky Four and the Treacherous Three. L.L. was even iller about it. On the classic "Rock The Bells," L said, "So all you Jheri Curl suckers wearing high-heel boots / Like ballerinas, what I mean is you're a fruit-loop troop." If you look at publicity photos of Flash's crew, you'll know exactly who L.L. was talking about. Anyway, M.C. Tee (of Mantronix) wasn't the aggressive kind of cat that L.L. was, so he never said anything like that about the Old School cats, but Mantronix was definitely New School, not Old School. Even the techniques were different. By Mantronik's time (Mantronik was the DJ, M.C. Tee was the rapper), turntable skills were already sort of secondary. Mantronik was known of 'The King Of The Beats.' He was a monster on the Roland drum machines and he was very skilled with cutting-edge post-production techniques. Twice, I got to see him live. He never really did anything on the turntables. I'm not criticizing. It was just a different time. (And please don't write in to tell me about how you heard Mantronik scratching. I did too. That just wasn't his focus.) dxt-dst.jpg Now D.St is a whole different thing. As you can probably tell from his quotes, he's straight out of the Old School. That's a hardcore, very serious cat. In the 2000's, it's become fashionable to say hip-hop is dead, but D.St once told me that hip-hop died the day Sugar Hill pressed the first copy of "Rapper's Delight." (If you don't get the point of what he's saying, "Rapper's Delight" was the first rap hit; it came out in 1979.) Despite his dislike of recorded hip-hop, D.St did drop a few classics himself, including a track called "Megamix II: Why Is It Fresh?" which is his version of Flash's "Adventures." Instead of Mantronix, we'll add that track to the box. We're heading towards information overload for one post, so I'm going to wrap it up. Basically, Flash's definition of hip-hop is on point. It's what I was trying to explain last week when I said, "If you ain’t rapping over hard beats, it ain’t hip-hop." Hip-hop is talking rhythmically over music, and usually, that music has hard or heavy rhythms. That's it. Now, look. This isn't algebra, it's music. These aren't laws, these are descriptions. There are always exceptions. But as a general rule of thumb, if you don't hear anybody rapping, and you don't hear that thump, you're not listening to hip-hop. —Mtume ya Salaam

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 27th, 2007 at 12:10 am and is filed under Classic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


7 Responses to “GRANDMASTER FLASH / “The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel””

chris defendorf Says:
May 27th, 2007 at 10:50 am

did you know that you can get domain names with the name .dj now? i picked up http://www.scratch.dj

so now my email is dj@scratch.dj

anyway –

: )

i’d love for you to look at DJ Johnny Juice’s work on Public Enemy’s "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back". It’s credited as Terminator X, and he does some of the scratching. Most is done by DJ Johnny Juice. The turntablism is amazing.

I have his email if you want to talk to him.

 
         Mtume says:         

Interesting. I didn’t know that. (That an uncredited DJ was putting in work for Terminator X.) I saw a few Public Enemy shows back when they were in their heyday, and I was always a little suspicious of Terminator X behind the tables. He didn’t seem particularly comfortable. But then, a lot of the live P.E. thing was theater, so it was always hard to tell what who was stiff because of being uncomfortable and who was stiff because that was their intentional shtick. Or both, I guess.

BTW, why is that name, Johnny Juice, familiar? Did he eventually get credited on later P.E. releases? Or did he do some other stuff? I feel like I’ve seen the name somewhere before.

(That is comical that internet domain extensions have turned into a free-for-all. I’ve seen .us and .tv too.)

Later!

 


Rudy Says:
May 27th, 2007 at 3:17 pm

Yall is jamming. I can’t remember when I have had so much fun. It’s like looking into a mirror of physical distortions/contortions that keeps changing one’s appearance humorously as one moves about. Thanks ever so much for this mess of unique aural/visual pleasures. Makes one want to jump up shout and shake a turkey feather. What glorious madness!!! — Rudy


Linda D. Says:
May 28th, 2007 at 2:08 pm

Jus bought the cd Grand Master Flash Essential Mix Classic Edition. LOVIN’ IT!!!!! Brings me way back . . . I highly recommend. Thank you SOOOOO much for this site and the great music week after week.
Peace
Linda


Berry Says:
May 29th, 2007 at 2:01 pm

Wow…back in the days when they created records for people to dance to note just nod their heads and do a two step or booty shake. I love this remix…it brings back good memories. Feel good music!


a-one Says:
May 29th, 2007 at 10:22 pm

I’m loving this article. Especially the breakdown of new school vs old school. Too many people don’t “get it.”


Elizabeth Says:
June 1st, 2007 at 4:29 pm

Grandmaster Flash helped invent both an art form, the hip-hop sound, and a type of artist, the turntablist DJ. I love his work, especially what he did with Blondie. For all you DJ’s and mixers out there, there’s a DJ and sneaker competition coming up. All you have to do is submit your original mixes and or sneaker designs to be apart of the battle. The Live Battles take place in Atlanta, DC, and Chicago, where DJ’s and sneaker artists will face off and reveal their skills. The celeb judges will include Kenzo, DJ Clark Kent, Eddie Cruz, and Bradley Carbone. Also performing live will be Dice Raw from The Roots and Truck North. Check out the site for more details: http://www.yarisversusyaris.com I work with Toyota, so I’m just giving you a heads up.


TIM Says:
November 13th, 2007 at 1:37 am

I AM TRYING TO FIND THE SONG THAT GRANDMASTER FLASH AND THE FURIOUS 5 DOES IT’S ABOUT BEFORE RUN HAD HIS 1ST PAIR OF ADDIAS …IT’S WHEN THEY DO THE LIVE SHOW RIGHT AFTER A COUNT TO KEITH COWBOY AND RIGHT BEFORE THE MESSAGE IF ANYONE KNOWS EMAIL ME DYTIMMYS@AOL.COM THX


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