Summary
Grandmaster Flash's "messages" were frescoes of ghetto life,
fusing socio-political commentary and senseless partying.
His The Adventures... on the Wheels Of Steel (1981) was one of the
first singles to use samples of other people's songs (Chic, Blondie, Queen),
in fact, possibly the first record ever performed by a lone musician playing only turntables and a mixer as instruments.
Full bio
(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
Grandmaster Flash (Joseph Saddler) is one of the historic figures of hip-hop and rapping. From his headquarters in the Bronx, much of the "deejay" phenomenon originated. He and Gene Livingston, known as Mean Gene, were among the organizers of the legendary 1976 parties, and by 1977 they dominated a third of the Bronx. The two had gotten into the habit of holding outdoor parties, connecting their amplification system directly to the streetlights. Their favored meeting point was the park at the corner of 169th Street and Boston Road.
Flash had to fight tooth and nail against the reputation of Hercules, because working outdoors meant he couldn’t rely on lights and bass—the two most important factors in a nightclub. However, he went on to learn the sophisticated techniques of Manhattan deejays, who had access to superior technology. Flash thus became the first in the Bronx to use two turntables simultaneously, allowing him to repeat the break while maintaining the same beat.
Other techniques Saddler learned in Manhattan included "cutting" (splitting the track precisely on the beat) and "phasing" (altering the turntable speed). He then invented the break collage, the art of mixing sound fragments from wildly different records at dizzying speeds. In short, these techniques earned him a venue, the Black Door, also on Boston Road. His dancers specialized in the "freak," a frantic dance simulating sexual activity, during which practically anything could happen. Flash finally invented the "back-spinning" technique, repeating phrases and patterns from a record by spinning it backward rapidly with his hand.
Saddler was therefore the greatest craftsman of sound montage.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
Grandmaster Flash was even more scientific than Campbell in developing new turntable techniques specifically aimed at the needs of b-boys. He was also instrumental in turning the hip-hop dj into a profession: first he was hired by a small night club called the Black Door (with a crime boss as his manager), and then on 2 September 1976 he performed at Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom in front of 3,000 people, a privilege never accorded before to a dj.
It took them five years to finally make a record of the music that Sadler had invented (their first singles were fairly conventional raps, such as Freedom, 1980, and Birthday Party, 1981) but when their ghetto frescoes were finally released (starting with The Message, 1982) they triggered a veritable revolution. The Adventures ... on The Wheels Of Steel (1981) was one of the first singles to use sampling (sampling Chic, Blondie and Queen). White Lines (1983) is an orgy of electronic effects.
Grandmaster Flash's "thump-music" shamelessly exploits clapping, brass fanfares, a kazoo ensemble and visceral screams.
His hits are acts of schizophrenia, torn between socio-political commentary and the ultimate carefree party music. They are hypnotic and logorrheic deliria that scour the streets of the ghetto and gather populist fragments of daily banality for an infinite-length mural.
The general exuberance, the tribal rhythms and the lascivious funky lines transcend into "messages": universal visions in which ghetto life was abstracted (and peppered with hilarious and surreal proverbs such as "It's like a jungle sometime/ it makes me wonder how I keep going under").
The later songs were drenched in a more alienated mood (Survival, 1983; New York New York, 1984; Gold, 1988), and were focused on the hedonistic aspect of dancing with plenty of electronic beats.
Sadler not only advanced the technique of rapping, but also turned it into a form of political art that descended from Ochs and Scott-Heron.
Sadler was the "Bill Haley" of rap: he opened the doors to a genre that other, more authentic, folk heroes would transform into art.
With him, the DJ became a creative actor in the musical process and the turntable a musical instrument, particularly ideal for underlining a "message" as required by all agit-prop art.
Greatest Message (SugarHill, 1984) is an anthology
The Greatest Hits (Earmark, 2004) is a 3-LP anthology.
The Bridge: Concept of a Culture (Strut, 2009), his first album in over two decades, was a mediocre work.
