They followed this up in 1981 with “Birthday Party,” a fun disc featuring the furious five playing kazoos. The group went on tour, previously unheard of for rappers. “Freedom” (1980) went to #19 on the R&B charts.

Robinson bought the Furious Five out of their Enjoy contract and put his wife (a quarter of a century veteran performer by that time) to work with them.

Joe Robinson, husband of Sylvia, who had a major hit with “Pillow Talk” on Robinson’s Vibration Records, had released the Sugarhill Gang’s record on his Sugar-hill label. They started playing shows and even cut a couple of records for upstart labels that heard this sound as a way to capitalize on the urban audience after the success of the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.” The 12““Super Rapping Theme” on Enjoy didn’t sell well, nor did a couple the group cut for other companies under assumed names. Kid Creole), Rahiem (born Todd Williams) and Scorpio (born Eddie Morris, a.k.a. Kurtis Blow joined for a while, but the crew solidified as Grandmaster Melle Mel (born Melvin Glover), his brother Nathaniel (a.k.a. Wiggins, who became known as Cowboy, became the first member of Flash’s crew, the Furious Five. Early on he worked with Lovebug Starsky and Keith Wiggins. He enlisted alliances with MC’s, people who talked over the records, creating rhymes and exhorting people to dance. While studying electronics during the day, he continued deejay ing by night, working local discos and working in his various techniques: quick cutting, scratching records, speed changes and back spinning.Įventually Flash decided that this technique wouldn’t stand on its own as entertainment, so he took another page from Kool Here’s book. By his teens, he played records at parties, dances and impromptu gatherings-throw downs-in parks around the Bronx, often pirating the electricity from power cables until the police came to shut the party down. Even if Flash didn’t invent the fast cut technique, keeping two copies of a record on the turntables and cutting back and forth between them to lengthen breaks and solos, he did master it.īorn in the West Indies, he came to the Bronx at a fairly early age. Jones, noted for impeccable timing of his segues and Kool Here, known for his collection of obscure break beats. His main innovation capitalized on the work of two other legendary Bronx deejays: D.J. Grandmaster Flash, was probably the first renowned virtuoso of the turntables. Grandmaster Flash (originally, Saddler, Joseph), one of the creators and popularizers of hip hop culture who, with the Furious Five, established the basic tonal and political vocabulary of rap b. Grandmaster Flash (originally, Saddler, Joseph)

Flash Blood by Joseph Hirsch