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Grandmaster Flash at Scala

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Time 20:30
Date 28/08/18
Price £27.5
  • Produced by Scala
  • Price £27.50 (+ £3.44 Fees)
  • Bring along hip-hop speak and style.
  • Surf to book tickets.
  • See you at Scala

There are lots of stories about the birth of jazz and the beginning of rock n’ roll, but hip-hop has founding fathers: one of them is DJ Grandmaster Flash.

The career of DJ Grandmaster Flash began in the Bronx with neighborhood block parties that essentially were the start of what would become a global phenomenon — the dawn of a musical genre. He was the first DJ to physically lay his hands on the vinyl and manipulate it in a backward, forward or counterclockwise motion.

He invented the Quick Mix Theory. This allowed a DJ to make music by touching the record and gauging its revolutions to make his own beat and his own music. Flash’s template grew to include cutting, which, in turn, spawned scratching, transforming, the Clock Theory and the like. What we call a DJ today is a role that Flash invented.

By the end of the ‘70s, Flash had started another trend that became a hallmark around the world: emcees followed Flash to the various parts and parties to rap/emcee over his beats. Before long, he started his own group, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

Although Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five is widely known for their single, “The Message,” it was “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” that introduced DJing to a larger listening audience than it had ever known before; it became the first DJ composition to be recorded by a DJ. Punk and new wave fans were introduced to Flash through Blondie, who immortalized him in the hit, “Rapture.”

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