STARTING FROM SCRATCH
Hip-hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash tells What Hi-fi? how his search for elusive rare beats on vinyl led to the creation of the world’s most successful music genre
Grandmaster Flash wants to teach us about hip-hop. “From a chronological point of view, it’s always been misunderstood,” he tells What Hi-fi? “Where did this thing come from, and how did it become such a global phenomenon?”
But this is no ordinary history lesson. Flash hasn’t just read the book, he wrote much of its first testament. This is like being taught geometry by Pythagoras.
Obsessed with drum breaks, Flash designed his Quick Mix Theory – switching between two turntables playing simultaneously – taking a sample of a few seconds and turning it into minutes-long beds of music that became the canvas for breakdancers and MCS.
He brought scratching into the studio – a technique widely credited as the brainchild of Grand Wizzard Theodore, mentored by Flash as a fledgling DJ – while Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five’s The Message issued hip-hop with its license as a vehicle for social and political commentary.
But if hip-hop is the music of the DJ, then no better way to teach its history than via the decks. Flash’s live show,
Hip-hop: People, Places and Things, is an audio-visual presentation, combining footage of the genre’s birthplaces with the records through which it became the most popular music on Earth.
As well as the live show, Flash tells us about his hi-fi kit, why he now listens mainly to classical music and the ecstasy of finding that rare drum break.
Tell us a bit about the new live show.
When you are trying to explain the beginnings of hip-hop culture from a genesis point of view, you can almost see people don’t fathom it. They’re like: “What do you mean you took this thing, and did that with it, to make that?” What I did was come up with a way to make a presentation, so that when you see it, you get it. I took a team of video shooters to all the boroughs of New York. Then we edited the footage so when I’m playing particular music you see the places where this or that happened. If I’m playing B-boy breaks, that’s the Bronx, the area where I came up with the Quick Mix Theory. So you see the projects, you see places, you see things.
You want to figure out how a DJ cuts and scratches? Okay, let me put some cameras on my turntables. This way I’m showing you how I came up with it 40-plus years ago. How I put my fingertips on the record, and how I took
“I’m saying, ‘how do I take a ten second drum solo and make it ten minutes?’ I didn’t realise what I was doing, but it started something that’s pretty big”
duplicate copies of the vinyl. I’m going from turntable number one to turntable two, and then I’m taking this small bit of a ten second drum solo and looping it right in front of your eyes.
People have to understand, because this later became the music for the breakdancer, but it also became the music bed for the MC to tell the story.
You effectively turned the turntable into an instrument. Could you have done it with any other format? I tell people it’s absolutely impossible to cut and scratch unless you’re putting your fingertips on the source material and using it as a controller. I did it when I was 17, this is how I came up with it.
Modern technology has replicated that by way of using the CD-J. So it’s basically my idea in a different body.
So how much of the set is determined before you start playing and how much is dependent on audience reaction, getting those local favourites in, for example? I improvise all the time, and I do it on feeling. In a way I’m kind of guessing, but when you’ve done it for as long as I’ve done it… do you call that guessing? I don’t know what you’d call it.
How widely do you listen at home? I listen to classical. I listen to chamber music. I love it: Bach, Stravinsky, Beethoven. I’m a lover of strings and horns. I listen to things that I can’t play, so I can possibly come up with something in the realm I could play.
And how do you listen? Radio stations in New York. I love being caught in traffic, I get to seriously listen. Some days I say: “Oh, that was really cool.” And I may insert that inspiration into something I’m producing, or do that rhythm on the turntables.
Nothing is original – everything comes from somewhere. And after doing this 40-plus years, I wouldn’t say I’ve heard it all but I’ve heard most of it.
You’ve spoken about your dad’s record collection: is it fair to say that was your gateway into music and Djing? Absolutely. Actually it was my gateway into the value of the vinyl. Because when I used to touch his vinyl I used to get my ass spanked, over and over. As soon as he would go to work I would go to the closet and get the record.
Then from a scientific perspective, as I got older, I was like: “how is music coming out of these little black tunnels? From there, I became a geek. I started to get into electronic components and stuff, by way of taking apart my sister’s radio or the stereo in the living room.
When I finally was able to get my hands on my own turntables, it was like a marriage made in heaven. But then I only wanted the part with the drum solo. The rest of the record was horrible. So I’m saying, how do I take this ten second drum solo and make it ten minutes?
I did this not realising I was stitching together a bed of music that entertained the breakdancers. Then later on human beings wanted to speak over it. I didn’t realise what I was doing, but it started something that’s pretty big right now.
What was the first record you bought? Early hip-hop was like a community, so a lot of the people who came to my parties were friends. I used to ask their moms and pops: “Hey, you got any records in the closet that you don’t want?” They’re like: “I’ve been trying to get rid of these things for a long time.” That’s how I acquired my collection. So I don’t remember the first record I bought, but there were so many before that.
And what is it about having a record collection that remains so attractive? This whole hip-hop culture was based around the DJS. What made it so great was the friendly competition between Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and me to find that break you know your competitors don’t have. It’s such a euphoric feeling.
Like when Herc found Apache, he was under heavy guard. You’d never see the album cover of where it came from. The same when I found Take Me To The Mardi Gras by Bob James.
To go out on your journey to secondhand stores with music crates in the back, and try to find that break is a joyful thing. Especially when you find a few and you are like the don for a couple of weeks because all your competition doesn’t know what it is that you have. You can find a lot of stuff on the internet, but the struggle of trying to find a song nobody has is a wonderful feeling.