Grandmaster Flash on “Birth of a Culture”

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1:02This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Hip-hop aficionados love to debate the state of the genre and which current stars are really more pop than rap. But there's no question, none at all, that Grandmaster Flash is a true pioneer. He's been an innovator in the art of DJing since he was practically a child. And now, as a senior citizen, Grandmaster Flash remains as devoted to his turntable heroics as ever. He tours the globe. He spreads the gospel of hip-hop everywhere. And he tells stories about the origins of a music genre that has come to dominate the airwaves and has forever influenced American culture.

1:45In a new memoir, Birth of a Culture, Grandmaster Flash takes us behind the scenes of hip-hop's earliest days, from the Bronx to the downtown discos and parties in dank basements. I sat down this week with Grandmaster Flash, who was born Joseph Sadler in the Bronx, to talk about his new book and his beginnings. My mother always taught me to ask people what I should call them. Flash! Just Flash. Flash, yeah. Flash is funny. Because you got the greatest name ever. Ever. Thank you so much. To be known as Grandmaster and Flash. Thank you. We're just going to go by Flash. Okay. So let me ask you, Flash.

2:25You grew up and you were fascinated by these things. But before that, you were fascinated by the electronics in your house. Yes. At the same time you're listening to your father's records. My father had a routine. What was he doing for a living? He used to work for the 34th Street, the track repair for the subways, for New York City subways. Down at Penn Station. Right, at Penn Station. Correct. So when he would come home, David, he would go into his closet and he'd open his door and he would get these square things. And they would have pictures of like trains or animals or people or flowers or I don't know.

3:02I'm like, where is he going with this square thing? He's headed over to the brown box that lives in the living room, David. and he would take out this black thing. And it's all very mysterious to you guys. Very mysterious. And he's taking it and he's putting this in the brown box. And you're in the Bronx? In the Bronx, yes. Crossneck Projects in the Bronx. And how old are you at this time? Oh, single digits. Nine, ten. And I'm watching. So he goes over to this brown box and he takes this black thing. He puts it on this silver stick and he presses this button. And then this thing goes up. The black disc goes down.

3:48The arm goes on to the black disc. And sound comes out of the brown box. David, my dad is a magician. He's the best in the world. I'm like, holy moly, how did he do that? You know, and then, David, another fascination happened with me. Anything that turned on, lights on, and it was— Electronics. And, like, all these things fascinated me. The table radio, the stereo, the television. So now I'm getting a butter knife, and I'm unscrewing the back of everything possible because now I'm trying to figure out why do these things light up? You know, my sister's hair dryer, the table radio, the stereo in the living room, the TV in the living room.

4:41And then eventually my family said, listen, you have to stop doing this. I was tearing up so much stuff in the house. I was tearing up so much. So when did you make the connection, the connection between one fascination and another, between music, your father's record collection, and doing something about it. That meaning electronics and even the notion of being a DJ. When does that kick in? It kicks in because in the middle 70s, disco was big. Huge, yeah. It was the Godzilla of music. Did you like it, the music itself? I didn't like the music, but what fascinated me, David, was the way they would sort of pair two records together and blend.

5:30The old song disappears and the new song arrives. So your book is so much about the connections that you draw as a kid and how you create yourself as well. You're creating a new musical form. So how did you take what you were hearing in disco and do something new? I went back to Move On Up by Curtis Mayfield.

5:56That drum beat must have been about two minutes long.

6:08So when I was starting to listen to the records that my sisters were playing on the stereo, I'm like, why is this drum break so short? And I have to tell you, David, okay, let me play this pop record. Let me play this Motown record. Let me play this record. Let me play that record. It turned out a lot of these drum breaks were like four bars, eight bars long. That made me so angry, brokenhearted. Why aren't these drum breaks as long as Move On Up by Curtis Mayfield? And you wanted them to be longer for dance reasons? Because what I noticed that when I was watching the house parties that was happening in the house and at home, when the drum break came, the backsides would move more.

6:56I'm like, so in my mind, David, I'm saying that's the best part of the record. So that's when I started listening to Sly and the Family Stone, James Brown, TNT. So what did you do about it? I said to myself, I have to figure out how I can make this drum break longer, but without the person that's dancing, know that I'm extending it. So you've got a record that you brought in. I brought a record in, so I have a record. Not everybody's watching on YouTube, so explain it. So now what I had to do is, I had to do the unspeakable again. It brings me back to dad again. Yeah, you had to screw around with the record.

7:41If I'm going to concentrate on just the drum solo of a pop record, a rock, a jazz, a blues, a funk, a disco, an R &B, an alternative, a Caribbean, all that, I have to be able to see it in dark places. And that's when I decided to do the unspeakable, right? So you've got a box of crayons, the kind that you would get in the third grade. Yes. Crayolas. Right. And you've got a record here. What record do we have here? This is called Get Up and Dance by Freedom. Right. And this whole record is incredible, but the drum break is just totally out of here. It's just so, so amazing. So what I would do is I would mark the area with a bright colored crayon, sometimes white, sometimes yellow, and sometimes orange.

8:26So what I would do is I would mark it, and then I would take a soft cloth, and I would kind of get rid of as much of the grain of the crayon as possible. And this part was called the circular. We're seeing a record that looks like a geometry experiment. It's got a line around the circumference here of where you want it. And then radiating out from the center is a piece of what looks like masking tape. Yes, and crayon. Okay, doesn't the needle get a little angry when it hits any of this stuff? Well, the break lives where it lives. So for me, I only need it from here to there. I see. So if I had two copies of this, I can keep cutting and pasting that one particular area.

9:11Now I can do what I heard from Curtis Mayfield, move on up. And I would have two copies of this, and I would have two guys with two piles of records. So it's like records are flying off and on, off and on, off and on, off and on. So being a DJ was like an intellectual sport, but it was also a physical one too. I think I based what I did, which is a quick mixed theory on math and kinetics. You know, I mean, for me... When did this happen? How old were you when this was happening? This is 12, 13. I'm trying to figure this out. Is there anybody else around town doing it? No, this has never been done before.

9:44Because everybody else that was playing the record, they were playing the record in a traditional fashion, and they were not putting their hands on the record. So you're Thomas Edison where this is concerned. That's what you want to call me. you wanted to invent something that wasn't in the world i wasn't trying to invent anything i just wanted the doggone break to be longer there's no no aren't you glad you were born then because if you were born now there'd be nothing to it yeah you could yeah you can do it now like you the way the way dj mixes and turntable units are made now too easy it's it's pretty much because i gotta tell you and i'm we're the same age when i watch djs now and they're flailing around and doing this, I'm thinking to myself, what are you doing?

10:25Aren't you just coming in with a recording that's pre-recorded and done already and it's kind of easy to do? Back when you were doing this, there was, there's all kinds of arts and arts and crafts and physical aspects of this and the precision of just manipulating the record. It's not easy. I had to figure out and I almost walked away from this whole thing maybe a year and a half in because I said to myself, if the drum break is only four bars, right, then I should be able to go counterclockwise four bars and re-arrive to the top of the break. But, David, it didn't happen. I was in the wrong place.

11:06You were frustrated? I was very, very frustrated. And then I looked at the vinyl, and it said 33 and a third. All right. So I'm saying to myself, so if it's 33 and a third, that means I have to go back further to get back to the top of the break so that I can do this seamlessly. So I came up with a math theory. So if I were to use another one bites the dust, four bars. One, two, three. Three, two, four. Four bars. 33 and a third. So I decided to rewind the record back six times, and let me see where I end up at. I ended up at the top of the break. I put on a rock record, duplicate copies. What are you playing?

12:14What rock and roll record? I'm playing Billy Squire. I'm playing Queen. I'm playing James Brown. I'm playing Rufus Thomas. So once I figured out four bars forward is equal to six counterclockwise, which is full loop extraction. Now I could take any record that has four bars and the break is short. I could keep the drum break, the series of drum breaks going for hours. So what I did was. And the asses are moving on the dance floor. Oh, did you just say the bad word? Oh, sorry. So now what helped me realize in this, Dave, I was weaving a backing track. My biggest problem when I was doing it alone, people wouldn't dance.

13:01They would just stand there and stare at me. I found out the beast. So sad. I'm like, why aren't you dancing? I'm playing the best part of this rock song. I'm playing the best part of this blues song, this funk song. Like, I want you guys to be losing your mind. And I said to myself, I have to add something to this. So I said to myself, what if I took a microphone while I'm doing this? Let me put a microphone on the other side of the table to see if there's a human being that could speak to this new style of me weaving this series of drum breaks, rock breaks, jazz breaks, blues breaks. But they're all on time to the beat.

13:37And there was this one guy by the name of Keith Wiggins. He's passed away a long time ago. His name is Cowboy. He started saying, do this and do that and do this and do that, which took the attention off of me. Give me an example of what Keith Wiggins would do. Throw your hands in the air. Yeah. And wave them like you don't care. Somebody say ho. Somebody scream. So now he's got them occupied. Now I can go full throttle. So Flesh, what year are we in when this is happening? This is 72, 73. So this is well, well before hip-hop. This is because hip-hop didn't have a name then. Right. Not yet. It was the age of the DJs.

14:10And the big DJs of this time was myself, Africa Bambada, Cool Herc, DJ Breakout. and we all had our own particular areas of the Bronx. Were you competitive or friendly? I think that maybe we weren't friendly. Did you know that you were starting something new or that it was going to... No. I mean, forget about that. It would become an international phenomenon and become popular music itself. Did you have any idea that it would emerge from the Bronx? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's just something you did for your friends. It was like mom would say, go outside and play. So we would go to the neighborhood park We would grab a couple of shopping carts from the supermarket and put my little makeshift piece of crap sound system, and we would go to the nearest park.

14:52And when does it expand beyond that? It expands beyond that because now you have the cornerstone of the DJs in the Bronx, and it goes to Manhattan, and then it goes to Brooklyn, and then it goes to Queens, and it goes to Long Island. And then we DJs were playing all the venues. And after a while, we were able to get the, you know, when the kids graduate. So the schools was calling us to play their prom. The prom. Exactly. So Ray Chandler, my manager at that time, says, Flash, I want to take you someplace because you've played every place. We've conquered them all. I want to take you to this other place.

15:33So I'm being cocky about it. He says, it's in Manhattan, 166th Street and Audubon Avenue. It's in Harlem. I'm like, okay, let's go. I said, so where's the building at? He says, we're walking alongside of it. And I got to tell you, David, this block must have been a five-minute, seven-minute walk. This is the Audubon Ballroom? This is it, yes. Where Malcolm X was killed. Yes. So I go up these three pairs of steps, and I get to the top of the building, And I see the fire capacity sign, and it says 3 ,000 people. And I walk in this place, and I look at this place. The fear that I had to play this place was scary.

16:21This was in May. He says, Flash, we'll do it September. give me this whole summer to pass out flyers and they get the word around and David that probably was the saddest summer for me because all I could do is think about this place just not being filled up what's the year flash? this is 76 and then the day comes we're bringing this sound system that was half made by me and half made by this Jamaican crew that made sound systems and we do the sound check at 4 o 'clock in the afternoon. We hear like a pow! The transformer of the main amplifier. It blows out. So now, we have to rush the amplifier to Cunning Hill Road where the engineer who built the amplifier is in plea with him to stop what you are doing.

17:17You need to repair this amplifier. Once we told him what we was doing, a couple of hours went by. we got the amplifier back. I was really in mortal fear this day at about 6 o 'clock so I leave after the sound check jump in the taxi and I go home. He says Flash come back later because you guys are headlining. You're going to go on last. So I get back at about 8.30 9 o 'clock and I'm the taxi's having a problem because between 166 and Audubon Avenue and 163rd there's traffic jams. I'm like, wow, something must be happening here. As the taxi approaches the Autobahn, the lines are wrapped around the corner.

18:10People see me, they start screaming. My security has to rush me in. We broke a record. We had 3 ,500 people in the place. And at that point, are you taking Take Me to the Mardi Gras at this point? Oh, I'm playing Mardi Gras, Apache. I'm playing all the... All right, tell me about Take Me to the Mardi Gras. Take Me to the Mardi Gras. When I went record shopping, it was very, very important. I might leave the house at about 9, 10 o 'clock in the morning, jump in the subway, go downtown, and go to the record stores. Because I didn't like the idea of music being in charts. There's no such thing as just a white song or a black song or a foreign song or an American song.

18:58Some of the most incredible songs could be a white drum break. It could be an Italian drum break. It could be a California drum break. So for me, going into the bins was like a crapshoot. Sometimes the album cover has to talk to me. So for me, I remember being in a jazz bin and I pulled this record up and it has a picture of a gold hand. And the gold hand is holding an apple. I'm like, this is not making sense to me. This is not making sense to me. So I put it back down and go back and go in the other bins, you know, all the different genres of bins. but I would come back to this Ben David and I'm saying if I buy this record I have to buy two copies and once you break the shrink wrap you own it I took that record home and I played it I'm like oh I have one here

20:20And when you say, I have one here, what are you hearing? I'm hearing that I have a hit drum break that I can play for my flock. But the thing was, either I was going to scratch out the label. Right. because there was this invisible thing of the code of respect when other DJs came to visit your party. Well, I was going to ask you this. Do you ever get in legal trouble at this point? In other words, do any of the recording artists think, hey, wait a minute, you're using my drug. Yeah, but I'm doing this in venues. I'm doing this in venues. I'm doing this in the streets. I'm doing this at block parties.

20:59Right. So this is before the money starts to show up. This is way, way, way before the money. This is way before the money. Got it. So, like say, if a DJ, if one of us was off, we would go see what the other DJ is doing. So out of respect, we wouldn't have that DJ out in the crowd. He would come under the ropes and he could just hang out near the DJ booth. So what I used to do, if whenever I found a drum break that was amazing, I would take the ones that missed. I called them stiffs and I would put them in a crate. So what I would do is I would take both copies of Bob James and then two duplicates that I found nothing.

21:40I would soak them in the bathtub. Right. This label would come up and I would switch the labels. But Dave, I had to do this because if he asked me what it was, I would have to respectfully tell him. But I really didn't want to tell him and I didn't want to disrespect code in the streets. So he's sitting there, that DJ who's off, he's going like that. And I'm sure he went downtown and he bought those records. He probably had 50 sandwiches saying Flash. I couldn't find that break. I'm speaking with Grandmaster Flash. More in a moment.

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26:50Includes up to 20 GB hotspot. Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. We're going to listen to one of your early recordings showcasing what a solo DJ can do with a pair of turntables and a mixer. Here's a bit of the adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel. Let's play that.

27:23Three turntables.

27:28Oh, flash is fast, flash is fast, flash is fast. Changing the record. Say run for the trouble, two for the time. Come on, girls, let's rock with that. Time to record off.