This is a story about Flash’s contribution to hip hop’s existence. Let’s dive into his perfect of beat looping, his invention of scratching, and how the songs in his set lists became the basis for sampling.

Yet Flash’s rightful legacy should begin in 1975, four years before the first-ever hip-hop track was released. Grandmaster Flash was hip hop in the same way Velvet Underground was punk. Or King Tubby was dub. Or Wiley was grime. They were predecessors, making the music before it even had a name.

Grandmaster Flash is synonymous with the origin story of hip hop. His most famous works are quintessential old-school and appear on any best of hip hop list from the early ’80s. It’s not surprising that twenty-five years later, he’s best known for these songs.

Grandmaster Flash’s Revolutionary Technique

Hip hop grew out of the 1970s in the burnt-out South Bronx neighborhood of New York City. The spot was gang-ridden, teaming with drugs, and bursting with creative energy. Hip hop was the voice of this environment. It was raw, and kids were dancing away hot summer nights embracing a secret culture that was just for them. They were spray-painting subways cars, writing rhymes, and throwing parties. Grandmaster Flash was one of these kids, and his passion was DJing.

His father had an immense vinyl collection and in his youth, Flash would throw on records when his dad was out of the house. In the mid ‘70s, he started going to the parties held by the legendary DJ Kool Herc. These parties were hosted in abandoned buildings and parks, with music from huge stereo systems hooked up to lampposts for electricity. Teenagers came from all over the Bronx, just for one night of liberating dancing. Break dancing circles would expand and contract with the ebb and flow of the party. Herc would spin hard funk records and was known for playing only the specific section of a song called the break: the part where most of the instruments cut out, leaving a stripped-down drum fill or bass line.

Grandmaster Flash plays only the breaks (scene dramatized from Netflix’s “The Get Down”)

Flash set himself apart from the other DJs by doing something no one had ever done before: touching the record. Herc threw great parties and always rocked the crowd, but Grandmaster Flash noticed that there was always a hiccup in time between songs. One would end, and the other would start slightly off the beat, translating into a misstep in dancing. Flash thought it deflated the party, and he wanted the energy to be continuous.

Flash made it his goal to play a whole set completely in time, and his solution changed DJing forever. By putting his finger on the record, Flash had complete control of when the breaks would come in, and he could string them together without a single missed beat. Finally, there was a seamless sonic backdrop for break dancers to move to and for MCs to spit their verses over. Word got around and the parties grew in size. Hip-hop was coming into its own.

The importance of the crayon (scene dramatized from Netflix’s “The Get Down”)

He also realized that when touching the record, the turntable made a sound, and rewinding the vinyl itself produced a noise now known as scratching. Grandmaster Flash harnessed this effect, turned it into another rhythmic element of the DJ set, and brought the party to a whole new level.

Scratching in Action

In 1981, the world heard his DJing skills on vinyl for the first time. Grandmaster Flash released “Wheels of Steel,” the first record featuring one person with only two turntables and a mixer as instruments. By breaking down the song to its individual samples, we can see how Grandmaster Flash stitched together segments from ten different songs into one piece of music.