D.J. Kool Herc
DJ Kool Herc in New York City, 2000
Background information
Birth name	Clive Campbell
Born	(1955-04-16) April 16, 1955 (age 57) Kingston, Jamaica
Origin	Kingston, Jamaica
Genres	Hip hop
Years active	1967–present

Clive Campbell (born April 16, 1955), also known as Kool Herc, DJ Kool Herc and Kool DJ Herc, is a Jamaican-born DJ who is credited with originating hip hop music, in The Bronx, New York City. His playing of hard funk records of the sort typified by James Brown was an alternative both to the violent gang culture of the Bronx and to the nascent popularity of disco in the 1970s. In response to the reactions of his dancers, Campbell began to isolate the instrumental portion of the record which emphasized the drum beat—the "break"—and switch from one break to another to yet another.

Using the same two turntable set-up of disco DJs, Campbell's style led to the use of two copies of the same record to elongate the break. This breakbeat DJing, using hard funk, rock, and records with Latin percussion, formed the basis of hip hop music. Campbell's announcements and exhortations to dancers helped lead to the syncopated, rhymed spoken accompaniment now known as rapping. He called his dancers "break-boys" and "break-girls", or simply b-boys and b-girls. Campbell's DJ style was quickly taken up by figures such as Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash. Unlike them, he never made the move into commercially recorded hip hop in its earliest years.

Biography[link]

1520 Sedgwick Avenue[link]

Front of 1520 Sedgwick Ave., where Kool Herc threw his first parties.

Clive Campbell was the first of six children born to Keith and Nettie Campbell in Kingston, Jamaica. While growing up, he saw and heard the sound systems of neighborhood parties called dancehalls, and the accompanying speech of their DJs, known as toasting. He moved to the Bronx, New York in November 1967.^[1] The creation of the Cross Bronx Expressway by Robert Moses (completed 1963, with further construction continuing through to 1972) had uprooted thousands in the Bronx, displaced communities, and led to "white flight" due to lowered property values in its wake.^[2] Many landlords resorted to arson in order to recoup money through insurance policies. A violent new street gang youth culture emerged there around 1968, and had spread with increasing lawlessness across large parts of the Bronx by 1973.^[3]

Campbell attended the Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School in the Bronx, where his height, frame, and demeanor on the basketball court prompted the other kids to nickname him "Hercules". He began running with a graffiti crew called the Ex-Vandals, taking the name Kool Herc.^[4] Herc recalls persuading his father to buy him a copy of "Sex Machine" by James Brown, a record that not a lot of people had, and one which they would come to him to hear.^[5] He and his sister, Cindy, began hosting back-to-school parties in the recreation room of their building, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue.^[6] Herc's first soundsystem consisted of two turntables, a Dual channel guitar amplifier and PA speakers, on which he played records like James Brown's "Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose", The Jimmy Castor Bunch's "It's Just Begun" and Booker T & the MG's' "Melting Pot".^[4] With Bronx clubs afflicted with the menacing presence of street gangs, uptown DJs catering to an older disco crowd with different aspirations, and commercial radio also catering to a demographic distinct from kids in the Bronx, Herc's parties had a ready-made audience.^[4][7][8]

The break[link]

At these parties in the recreation room at Sedgwick Avenue, DJ Kool Herc developed the style that was the blueprint for hip hop music. Herc used the record to focus only on a short, heavily percussive, part in it: the "break". Since this part of the record was the one the dancers liked best, Herc isolated, changed to other, and later, prolonged it. As one record reached the end of the break, he cued the other record back to the beginning of the break, thereby extending a relatively small part of a record into a "five-minute loop of fury".^[9] This innovation had its roots in what he called "The Merry-Go-Round"—a switching from break to break done at the height of the party. Herc told The New York Times he first introduced the Merry-Go-Round into his sets in 1972.^[10] The earliest known Merry-Go-Round involved playing James Brown's "Give It Up or Turnit A Loose" (with its refrain, "Now clap your hands! Stomp your feet!"), then switching from its break into the break from "Bongo Rock" by The Incredible Bongo Band, and from "Bongo Rock"'s break into that of "The Mexican" by the English rock band Babe Ruth.^[11] Kool Herc also contributed to developing the rhyming style of hip hop by punctua with slang phrases from the DJ's microphone: "Rock on, my mellow!" "B-boys, b-girls, are you ready? keep on rock steady" "This is the joint! Herc beat on the point" "To the beat, y'all!" "You don't stop!"^[12][13] For his contributions Herc is called a "founding father of hip hop,"^[14][15] a "nascent cultural hero,"^[16] and an integral part of the beginnings of hip hop by Time.^[17][18]

On August 11, 1973, DJ Kool Herc was a Disc Jockey and Emcee at a party in the recreation room at Sedgwick Avenue.^[19] Specifically, DJ Kool Herc:

extended an instrumental beat (breaking or scratching) to let people dance longer (break dancing) and began MC’ing (rapping) during the extended breakdancing. ... [This] helped lay the foundation for a cultural revolution.

—History Detectives^[19]

B-boys and b-girls[link]

The "b-boys" and "b-girls" were the dancers to Herc's breaks, who were described as "breaking". The obvious connection is to the breakbeat, but Herc has noted that "breaking" was also street slang of the time meaning "getting excited", "acting energetically" or "causing a disturbance".^[20] Herc's terms "b-boy", "b-girl" and "breaking" became part of the lexicon of hip hop culture even before that culture itself had a name. Early Kool Herc b-boy and later DJ innovator Grandmixer DXT describes the early evolution thus: " ... [E]verybody would form a circle and the B-boys would go into the center. At first the dance was simple: touch your toes, hop, kick out your leg. Then some guy went down, spun around on all fours. Everybody said wow and went home to try to come up with something better."^[12] This was the form the media in the early eighties called "breakdance"; the same form the dance critic of the New York Times in 1991 declared "an art as demanding and inventive as mainstream dance forms like ballet and jazz."^[21] Since the overall emerging culture was yet to be named, its followers were likely to identify as "b-boys" over and above the specific connection to dance, a usage that persisted in following years.^[22]

Move to the streets[link]

With the mystique of his graffiti name, his physical stature, and the reputation of his small parties, Herc had become somewhat of a folk hero in the Bronx. Herc began to play at the nearby Twilight Zone club,^[6] the Havelo club, the Executive Playhouse club, the PAL on 183rd Street,^[4] and high schools such as Dodge High School and Taft High School.^[23] Rapping duties were delegated to Coke La Rock. Herc's collective, known as The Herculoids, was further augmented by Clark Kent and dancers The Nigga Twins.^[4] Herc also took his soundsystem (the herculords) —now upgraded to one of legendary volume^[24]—to the streets and parks of the Bronx. Nelson George recalls a schoolyard party:

The sun hadn't gone down yet, and kids were just hanging out, waiting for something to happen. Van pulls up, a bunch of guys come out with a table, crates of records. They unscrew the base of the light pole, take their equipment, attach it to that, get the electricity – Boom! We got a concert right here in the schoolyard and it's this guy Kool Herc. And he's just standing with the turntable, and the guys were studying his hands. There are people dancing, but there's as many people standing, just watching what he's doing. That was my first introduction to in-the-street, hip hop DJing.^[25]

Impact on artists[link]

A young Grandmaster Flash, to whom Kool Herc was, in his words, "a hero", began DJing in Herc's style in 1975. By 1976, it was possible for Flash, and his MCs The Furious Five, to play to a packed Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. Venue owners were often nervous of unruly young crowds, however, and soon sent hip hop back to the clubs, community centers and high school gymnasiums of the Bronx.^[26] Afrika Bambaataa first heard Kool Herc in 1973. Bambaataa, at that time a general in the notorious Black Spades gang of the Bronx, obtained his own soundsystem in 1975 and began to DJ in Herc's style, converting his followers to the non-violent Zulu Nation in the process. Kool Herc began using The Incredible Bongo Band's "Apache" as a break in 1975. It became a firm b-boy favorite—"the Bronx national anthem"^[12]—and is still in use in hip hop today.^[10] Steven Hager wrote of this period:

For over five years the Bronx had lived in constant terror of street gangs. Suddenly, in 1975, they disappeared almost as quickly as they had arrived. This happened because something better came along to replace the gangs. That something was eventually called hip-hop.^[12]

In 1979, record company executive Sylvia Robinson assembled a group she called The Sugarhill Gang and recorded "Rapper's Delight". The hit song ushered in the era of commercially released hip hop. By that year's end, Grandmaster Flash was recording for Enjoy Records. In 1980, Afrika Bambaataa began recording for Winley. By this time, DJ Kool Herc's star had faded. Grandmaster Flash suggests that Herc may not have kept pace with developments in techniques of cueing (lining up a record to play at a certain place on it).^[27] There were also developments in cutting (switching from one record to another) and scratching (moving the record by hand to and fro under the stylus for percussive effect) in the late seventies. Herc himself explains his retreat from the scene by referencing two events: an incident at the Executive Playhouse where he was stabbed while attempting to intercede in a fight, which took him out of action, and which he suggests made people wary of attending events hosted by him subsequent to it; and the burning down of one of the venues at which he used to DJ. In 1980, Herc had stopped DJing and was working in a record shop in South Bronx.

Later years[link]

Herc spins records in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx at a February 28, 2009 event addressing the "West Indian Roots of Hip-Hop."

Kool Herc appeared in Hollywood's motion picture take on hip hop, Beat Street (Orion, 1984), as himself. Some time in the mid-1980s, his father died, and he became addicted to crack cocaine. "I couldn’t cope, so I started medicating", he says of this period.^[28] In 1994 he appeared on Terminator X & the Godfathers of Threatt's album, Super Bad.^[4] In 2005, he wrote the foreword to Jeff Chang's book on hip hop, Can't Stop Won't Stop. In 2006, he became involved in getting Hip Hop commemorated at Smithsonian Institution museums.^[29]

Since 2007 he has become involved in a campaign to prevent 1520 Sedgwick Avenue being sold to developers and moved out of its Mitchell-Lama affordable housing scheme.^[30] In the Summer of 2007, New York state officials declared 1520 Sedgwick Avenue the "birthplace of hip-hop", and made it eligible for national and state registers.^[6] The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development ruled against the proposed sale in February 2008, on the grounds that "the proposed purchase price is inconsistent with the use of property as a Mitchell-Lama affordable housing development". It is the first time they have so ruled in such a case.^[31]

Serious illness[link]

According to a DJ Premier fan blog,^[32] The Source's website ^[33] and other sites, DJ Kool Herc had fallen gravely ill in early 2011. "Friends of DJ Kool Herc say he ... lacks health insurance," per another report.^[34] He had surgery for kidney stones, with a stent placed to relieve the pressure. He needs followup surgery but St. Barnabas Hospital, the site that performed the previous surgery, has requested that he put down a deposit prior to the next surgery, because he has missed several followup visits. The hospital stated it would not turn away uninsured patients in the emergency room. Herc's sister Cindy Campbell says that they have requested disclosure of the total sum required but the hospital has not yet given it to them.^[35] DJ Kool Herc and his family have set up an official website on which he describes his medical issue and the larger goal of establishing the DJ Kool Herc Fund to pioneer long term health care solutions.^[36]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Chang, Jeff. Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. St. Martin's Press, New York: 2005. ISBN 978-0-312-42579-1
• Cross, Brian. It's Not About A Salary...Rap, Race and Resistance in Los Angeles. New York: Verso, 1993. ISBN 978-0-86091-620-8
• Hager, Steven, "Afrika Bambaataa's Hip-Hop", Village Voice, September 21, 1982. Reprinted in And It Don't Stop! The Best American Hip-Hop Journalism of the Last 25 Years. Cepeda, Raquel (ed.). New York: Faber and Faber, Inc., 2004. ISBN 978-0-571-21159-3
• Ogg, Alex, with Upshall, David. The Hip Hop Years, London: Macmillan, 1999 ISBN 978-0-7522-1780-2
• Shapiro, Peter. Rough Guide to Hip-Hop, 2nd. ed., London: Rough Guides, 2005 ISBN 978-1-84353-263-7
• Toop, David. Rap Attack, 3rd. ed., London: Serpent's Tail, 2000 ISBN 978-1-85242-627-9

External links[link]

Find more about DJ Kool Herc on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote

• Official Website of DJ Kool Herc
• DJ Kool Herc at Allmusic
• DJ Kool Herc on Myspace
• DJ Kool Herc at the Internet Movie Database
• A biography of DJ Kool Herc at OldSchoolHipHop.com
• Lengthy Kool Herc bio @ hiphop.sh

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John W. Bowman, Jr., better known by his stage name DJ Kool is an American rapper who, in the late 1990s, produced several popular rap singles. Born in 1959 in Washington, D.C., his influence from his years of working the go-go and rap circuits became apparent in his music. During the early- to mid-1980s, Kool worked as a warm-up DJ for Rare Essence, until he was picked up by CLR Records.

In 1996, he recorded his most successful track, "Let Me Clear My Throat," which was released on American Recordings. The track peaked at #8 in the UK Singles Chart in March 1997.^[1] The song prominently featured a sample of "The 900 Number" by DJ Mark the 45 King, (that song featured a sample from Marva Whitney's "Unwind Yourself",^[2] repeated over a breakbeat for six minutes). The song also began by sampling "Hollywood Swinging" by Kool and the Gang. The song is a recognizable dance floor-filler, and the track remains popular to this day^[update]. DJ Kool was featured on Mýa's 2006 single "Ayo!" from her 2008 album Liberation. He was also featured on two tracks on Will Smith's 2005 album Lost and Found.

On November 21, 2009, he performed at halftime of a Denver Nuggets basketball game.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• The Music Ain't Loud Enuff (1990)
• 20 Minute Workout (1992)
• Let Me Clear My Throat (1996)

Singles[link]

• "Let Me Clear My Throat" (1996)

Guest Appearances[link]

• "Be A Man" by "Macho Man" Randy Savage (2003)
• "Let's Get Dirty (I Can't Get in da Club)" by Redman (2001)
• " We Won't" by Will Smith (2005)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Yahoo Biography
• Musicmatch guide
• Fansite
• DJ Kool Video interview with Money Train & Thenkman
• DJ Kool Video interview with DJ Tutor

This article on an American disc jockey is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Thomas "Herc" Hauk is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire played by actor Domenick Lombardozzi. The series introduces Herc as a detective in the Baltimore Police Department's Major Case Unit and the partner and loyal friend of Ellis Carver. Following promotion to sergeant, he is dismissed from the force after an incident involving the loss of a department surveillance camera. He subsequently works as a private investigator for attorney Maurice Levy.

Biography[link]

Season 1[link]

Herc and Ellis Carver typically worked as a pair in Narcotics, and both are intimidated by Kima Greggs' ability and annoyed at her superior attitude towards them. All three join the Barksdale detail headed by their shift Lieutenant Cedric Daniels. Herc and Carver get into trouble early on in the investigation when, along with Detective Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski, they drunkenly charge into a Barksdale-controlled housing project and harass a group of youths. While there, Prez pistol whips one of the youths, blinding him in one eye and nearly inciting a riot. Herc is slightly injured during the incident when residents begin throwing bottles and firing at the officers, but returns early from his sick leave to take part in raids on Barksdale's operation.

When young dealer Bodie Broadus punches detective Patrick Mahone during a raid, Herc, Carver and Greggs punish him with a beating. When Bodie later escapes from a juvenile detention center, Herc and Carver pursue and rearrest him; finding that he remains defiant they give him another beating. Even so, the three play pool together when they find themselves having to wait hours to hand Bodie over. Herc's character is also humanized somewhat when, in a failed attempt to arrest Bodie at his grandmother's house, he apologizes to her for his rough language and listens politely as she discusses Bodie's troubled past.

When Herc and Carver intercept the Barksdale crew's profits for a day by tailing Wee-Bey Brice, Herc considers keeping some of the money, but Carver realizes that figures mentioned on the wiretap might leave them exposed. Some of the money still goes missing when the bag rips in their trunk. After Lieutenant Daniels confronts them about the missing money, Carver begins to suspect Herc has stolen it, until it is found in the spare-wheel well of the car. This also gets both of them on the wrong side of Daniels, who assumes they simply stole and then returned the money. Later, while raiding a drug stash in Pimlico, Herc and Carver do steal money for themselves.^[1]

With little study, Herc takes and passes the sergeant's exam, placing 18 on the list of ranked, passing officers. After celebrating he finds out that he will not in fact be promoted, likely because of past brutality allegations (none of which are confirmed, but all of which are true). Carver, however, who ranks 37, is promoted to Sergeant after acting as a spy in the detail on behalf of Deputy Commissioner Ervin Burrell.

Season 2[link]

When the detail is disbanded, Herc moves back to Narcotics, investigating white East-Side dealers. Daniels brings Herc into Major Valchek's detail investigating Frank Sobotka, recognizing Herc's stomach for the tedium of surveillance work. At Herc's request, Daniels also brings Carver back but refuses to recognize his promotion; Greggs remains lead detective for the detail.

Herc is again partnered with Carver and the two investigate drug dealing around the docks area. Herc plays the key undercover role, dealing with the mostly white drug dealers in the Polish docks neighborhood of Baltimore.

The two use a high-priced listening device concealed within a tennis ball to gain information then, after the device is damaged, fabricate a confidential informant named "Fuzzy Dunlop" (an inside joke between them referencing the tennis ball's texture and manufacturer) and take payments meant for the informant to cover its cost. Through their surveillance, they are able to establish a link between Frank's nephew and the drug trade.

Herc feels unappreciated, as he and Carver are constantly relied upon to do tedious leg work for the detail, even having to install an air conditioner in the home of a judge. After being left out in the rain waiting for a suspect who has already turned himself in, Herc convinces Carver they will never be respected in Daniels' unit, and they put in for a transfer.^[2]

Season 3[link]

Herc returns to Narcotics with Carver and works in the Western District under Major Colvin. Together they are responsible for running the district's Drug Enforcement Unit and commanding a squad of dedicated narcotics police including officers Kenneth Dozerman, Lloyd "Truck" Garrick, Lambert and Anthony Colicchio.

The DEU squad is responsible for policing Colvin's unsanctioned free drug trade zone, nicknamed "Hamsterdam". Herc is critical of the Major's pet project and eventually leaks details of the zones to the Baltimore Sun. When the national media begins covering the story Hamsterdam is soon shut down and Major Colvin is forced to retire as a lieutenant.^[3][4]

Season 4[link]

Herc is working the security detail for Mayor Clarence Royce, when he stumbles across the mayor receiving felatio from his assistant in his office. Major Stanislaus Valchek advises Herc how to turn the mishap to his advantage and quickly make rank. The Mayor quickly surmises Herc's desire for promotion and demonstrates his willingness to help Herc's career in exchange for his discretion. Royce calls Burrell and demands that Herc be promoted to the first opening for sergeant. He receives the sergeant's post in the Major Crimes Unit under Lieutenant Charles Marimow, but soon loses his "rabbi" when Royce loses the Democratic mayoral primary. He and Marimow clash over methods, and Herc shows no respect for his leadership abilities.

Herc takes a police camera to spy on Marlo Stanfield without Marimow or a court's approval. Stanfield's crew realize they are being filmed and give fake information (prompting Herc to detain an innocent woman) and then steal the camera. Herc attributes the fake information to the fictitious informant "Fuzzy Dunlop". While attempting to retrieve the camera, Herc interviews Randy Wagstaff, who has knowledge about the murder of Lex, one of Boadie Broadus's drug dealers. However, Herc later mistakenly reveals Randy's cooperation to the murder suspect, Little Kevin; this information gets back to Stanfield and results in Randy being labeled a "snitch", eventually leading to the injury of Randy's foster mother and Randy's placement in a group home. Still attempting to retrieve the camera, Herc pulls over Chris and Snoop and finds a nail gun which ultimately proves to be an important clue for Lester Freamon's investigation into the murders of Lex and Fruit.

Greggs, now in Homicide and no longer in need of a drugs informant, puts Bubbles in touch with Herc, who believes he will be able to appease Marimow if he links Stanfield to a murder. Herc agrees to help Bubbles with his problems if in return he helps Herc find a witness to Fruit's murder. However, Herc repeatedly lets Bubbles down, and so, to get back at Herc, Bubbles provides him with bad information, leading him to arrest a church minister. Since the minister is African American and part of a politically-influential coalition, Herc is accused of harassment and racial profiling. The ministers apply pressure to newly-elected Mayor Tommy Carcetti, and Commissioner Burrell pushes the internal affairs division to look into Herc's wrongdoings with an eye toward finding a palatable excuse for discharging him. Herc is suspended with pay pending a full trial with the I.I.D. division.

Season 5[link]

Herc is now working as an investigator for defense attorney Maurice Levy, who has previously represented the Barksdale Organization. Herc is able to provide Levy with information from his contacts inside the Baltimore Police Department, including Ellis Carver,^[5] but he is irritated when Levy takes on Marlo Stanfield as a client. Herc meets Carver for drinks and admits feelings of remorse for some of his actions as a police officer.^[6] He attempts to redeem himself by making a note of Stanfield's confidential phone number from Levy's Rolodex and handing it to Carver (who then passes it on to Lester Freamon).

In the final episode, however, Herc tells Levy that a wiretap has probably been used in the Stanfield investigation – a wiretap which Levy realizes must be illegal. This tip allows Levy to keep Marlo Stanfield out of prison. A grateful Levy tells Herc he has done well and invites him to dinner at his home, as Herc is now mishpochah (Hebrew for "family"). Herc congratulates Carver on his promotion to lieutenant. He is last seen in the end-of-season montage at the bar buying drinks for his former colleagues.

Production[link]

Actor Domenick Lombardozzi speaks with the accent of his native South Bronx, which producers did not believe Lombardozzi would be able to convincingly hide and so did not ask him to try, planning a future explanation as to why the character was policing in Baltimore.^[7] Ultimately, in the fifth season premiere episode, "More with Less", Herc mentions having come from the Bronx when he makes a reference to his hometown New York Yankees being historically more successful than the Baltimore Orioles.^[5]

Reception[link]

Salon described Herc and Carver as providing needed comic relief to the show and acting as a "bickering couple".^[2]

References[link]

Grandmaster Flash
Background information
Birth name	Joseph Saddler
Born	(1958-01-01) January 1, 1958 (age 54)
Origin	South Bronx, New York
Genres	Hip hop, old school hip hop, funk
Years active	1970–present
Labels	Sugar Hill Records, Enjoy Records, Elektra Records
Associated acts	Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five The Sugarhill Gang

Joseph Saddler (born January 1, 1958 in Bridgetown, Barbados), better known as King Grandmaster Flash, is an American hip hop musician and DJ—one of the pioneers of hip-hop DJing, cutting, and mixing.

He has been credited with the invention of the first crossfade by sourcing parts from a junkyard in the Bronx. It was initially an On/Off toggle switch from an old microphone that he transformed into a left/right switch which allowed him to switch from one turntable to another; switch from record one to record two.

Before this time DJs, like the first of them all, DJ Kool Herc, and then Afrika Bambaataa, would have to break up the party to pick up the needle and re-drop it on the record, or a new record; until Flash invented a new way to link one record to the other with the cross-fader. After this invention he went from being called Flash to Grandmaster Flash, having made a huge impact on the culture, he was repaid with this honorific name.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, becoming the first hip hop/rap artists to be so honored.^[1]

Biography[link]

Joseph Saddler's family migrated to the United States from Barbados, in the Caribbean, and he grew up in The Bronx, New York. He attended Samuel Gompers High School, a public vocational school, where he learned how to repair electronic equipment.^[2] Saddler's parents played an important role in his interest in music. His parents came from Barbados and his father was a big fan of Caribbean and black American records. As a child, Saddler was fascinated by his father's record collection. In an interview, he reflected: "My father was a very heavy record collector. He still thinks that he has the stronger collection. I used to open his closets and just watch all the records he had. I used to get into trouble for touching his records, but I'd go right back and bother them."^[3] Saddler's early interest in DJing came from this fascination with his father's record collection as well as his mother's desire for him to educate himself in electronics.^[4] After high school, he became involved in the earliest New York DJ scene, attending parties set up by early luminaries.

He is also a nephew to the late Former Feather Weight Champion of the World Sandy Saddler.^[5]

Innovations[link]

Grandmaster Flash carefully studied the DJing styles and techniques of earlier DJs, particularly Pete Jones, Kool Herc, and Grandmaster Flowers.^[6] As a teenager, he began experimenting with DJ gear in his bedroom, eventually developing and mastering three innovations that are still considered standard DJing techniques today.

• Backspin Technique ("Quick-Mix Theory") a.k.a. Early New York party DJs came to understand that short drum breaks were popular with party audiences. Aiming to isolate these breaks and extend them for longer durations, Grandmaster Flash learned that by using duplicate copies of the same record, he could play the break on one record while searching for the same fragment of music on the other (using his headphones). When the break finished on one turntable, he used his mixer to switch quickly to the other turntable, where the same beat was queued up and ready to play. Using the backspin technique, the same short phrase of music could be looped indefinitely.
• Punch Phrasing ("Clock Theory"): This technique involved isolating very short segments of music, typically horn hits, and rhythmically punching them over the sustained beat using the mixer.
• Scratching: Although the invention of record scratching is generally credited to Grand Wizzard Theodore, Grandmaster Flash perfected the technique and brought it to new audiences. Scratching, along with punch phrasing, exhibited a unique performative aspect of party DJing: instead of passively spinning records, he manipulated them to create new music.^[7]

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five[link]

Grandmaster Flash played parties and collaborated with rappers such as Kurtis Blow and Lovebug Starski. In the mid 1970s, he formed his own group. The original lineup consisted of Cowboy (Keith Wiggins), Melle Mel (Melvin Glover) and Kid(d) Creole (Nathaniel Glover), and the ensemble went by the name "Grandmaster Flash & the 3 MCs". Two other rappers briefly joined, but they were replaced more permanently by Rahiem (Guy Todd Williams, previously in the Funky Four) and Scorpio (Eddie Morris, a.k.a. Mr. Ness) to make Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Quickly gaining recognition for their skillful raps, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five pioneered MCing and freestyle battles. Some of the staple phrases in MCing have their origins in the early shows and recordings of the group. In 1977, the new group began performing regularly at Disco Fever in the Bronx, one of the first times a hip-hop group was given a weekly gig at a well-known venue.^[8] In fact, it is claimed that Cowboy created the term "Hip hop" while teasing a friend who had just joined the U.S. Army by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers.^[9]

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were signed to Bobby Robinson's Enjoy Records and in 1979 released their first single, "Superrappin'." The following year they signed to Sugar Hill Records and began touring and releasing numerous singles. The seminal "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel", released in 1981, is a 7-minute solo showcase of Grandmaster Flash's virtuosic turntable skills, combining elements of Blondie's "Rapture," Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band's "Apache," Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," Chic's "Good Times," and the group's own "Freedom." It is also the first documented appearance of record scratching on a record. That year, the group opened for The Clash and were poorly received by an audience unaccustomed to the new style.^[10] The group's most significant hit was "The Message" (1982), which was produced by in-house Sugar Hill producer Clifton "Jiggs" Chase and featured session musician Duke Bootee. Unlike earlier rap tunes, "The Message" featured a grim narrative about inner city violence, drugs, and poverty. In 2002, its first year of archival, it was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry, the first hip hop recording ever to receive this honor. Critics praised the song's social awareness, calling the chorus "a slow chant seething with desperation and fury."^[11] Other than Melle Mel, however, no members of the group actually appear in the song. Rahiem lip-synced Duke Bootee's vocal in the music video. The same year, Grandmaster Flash appeared in the movie "Wild Style" and sued Sugar Hill over the non-payment of royalties. Tensions mounted as "The Message" gained in popularity, eventually leading to a rupture between Melle Mel and Grandmaster Flash. Soon the group disintegrated entirely. Grandmaster Flash, Kid Creole, and Rahiem left Sugar Hill, signed with Elektra Records, and continued on as simply "Grandmaster Flash", while Melle Mel and the others continued on as "Grandmaster Melle Mel & the Furious Five".

Although frequently credited on the records, Grandmaster Flash doesn't actually appear on "The Message," "Freedom," or many of the other Furious Five songs.^[7] Although Grandmaster Flash provided the central element of the group's sound when performing live (in addition to giving the group its name), there was little room for his turntablism in early singles driven by the grooves of live session musicians. Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five reformed in 1987 for a charity concert, and in 1988 they released a new album. The group reunited again in 1994, although Cowboy died in 1989.

Today, Grandmaster Flash is the owner of a clothing line, "G.Phyre."^[12] In 2008 he released a memoir, The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats.^[13] He hosts a weekly show on Sirius Satellite Radio (Friday Night Fire with Grandmaster Flash)^[14] and was presented with the BET "I Am Hip Hop Icon" award in 2006.^[15]

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were the first hip-hop/rap group inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on March 12, 2007 by Jay-Z.^[16] In 2008, he remixed the single "Into the Galaxy" by the Australian group, Midnight Juggernauts.^[17]

It has been said that "his pioneering mixing skills transformed the turntable into a true 'instrument', and his ability to get a crowd moving has made his DJ sets legendary." ^[18]

Grandmaster Flash appears in the video game DJ Hero as a playable character along with original mixes created for the game.^[19]

On his last album, The Bridge, appears the Spanish hip hop group Violadores del Verso.

Grandmaster Flash is currently working on his 12th album, set for release this spring.^[20]

Awards[link]

Grammys

• 2012 Hall of Fame for Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five single “The Message.”

Urban Music Awards

• 2009, Lifetime Achievement Award

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

• 2007, Inductee

BET Hip Hop Awards

• 2006, I Am Hip Hop Icon Award

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

Singles[link]

• 1979 - Superappin' (Enjoy 6001) Side A - Superappin'; Side B - Superappin' Theme
• 1980 - Freedom (Sugar Hill SH-549) Side A - vocal; Side B - instrumental
• 1981 - The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel (Sugar Hill SH-557)
• 1981 - Scorpio (Sugar Hill SH 118) Side A - vocal; Side B - instrumental
• 1982 - Flash To The Beat (Sugar Hill SH 574)
• 1984 - Jesse (Sugar Hill SH 133) Side A - vocal; Side B - instrumental
• 1984 - We Don't Work For Free (Sugar Hill SH 136) Side A - vocal; Side B - instrumental
• 1988 - Gold (edit) (Elektra EKR 70)
• 1996 - If U Wanna Party (feat. Carl Murray) (JAM 1002-8)

^{[21] [22]}

References[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (May 2012)

• Grandmaster Flash Official Page
• Official website of 2009 album The Bridge
• Grandmaster Flash on Myspace
• Grandmaster Flash Biography
• Grandmaster Cuts Faster
• Grandmaster Flash interview from Chaos Control Digizine
• Davey D of Hard Knock Radio Interviews Grandmaster Flash
• Grandmaster Flash interview on Fresh Air
• Grandmaster Flash interview April 2009
• Interview
• Article
• Pop Matters: interview
• Brian S Redd Interview
• DJ Tutor Interview

The following is a list of significant men and women known for being the father, mother, or considered the founders mostly in Western socities in a field, listed by category. In most non-science fields, the title of being the "father" is debatable.

Church[link]

Games[link]

Humanities[link]

Military[link]

Nations[link]

Natural and social sciences[link]

Sports[link]

Technology[link]

Fields[link]

Inventions[link]