Books by Grandmaster Flash

The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats

by David Ritz, Grandmaster Flash

A no-holds-barred memoir from the primary architect of hip hop and one of the culture's most revered music icons€”both the tale of his life and legacy and a testament to dogged determination.Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five fomented the musical revolution known as hip hop. Theirs was a groundbreaking union between one DJ and five rapping MCs. One of the first hip hop posses, they were responsible for such masterpieces as €œThe Message€ and €œAdventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel.€ In the 1970s Grandmaster Flash pioneered the art of break-beat DJing€”the process of remixing and thereby creating a new piece of music by playing vinyl records and turntables as musical instruments. Disco-era DJs spun records so that people could dance. The original turntablist, Flash took it a step further by cutting, rubbing, backspinning, and mixing records, focusing on €œbreaks€€”what Flash described as €œthe short, clim

Birth of a Culture

by Grandmaster Flash, Robert Scoop Jackson

Birth of a Culture tells the chronological and comprehensive origin of hip hop. Over fifty years ago Joseph Saddler, a cool, nerdy, self-proclaimed kid scientist from the Bronx decided to create a new sound in American music. He grew up to become Grandmaster Flash and with the help of other DJs in his neighborhood, specifically Afrika Bambaataa and DJ Kool Herc they created what would be the musical backbone on which hip hop was born.

The impact of their creation is one of the greatest stories in contemporary American history. Birth of a Culture is to hip hop what Eyes On The Prize was to the Civil Rights Movement. It tells the chronological and comprehensive origin and extended story of the last great creative contribution.

When I first met Grandmaster Flash he said something to me that stuck and sums up so much of his accomplishments and music history. "This thing that I did with duplicate copies of a record became the music bed for human beings to speak on. Today they call it rap and I am the inventor."

This book is for readers of Hip-Hop (And Other Things) by Shay Serrano, Rick Rubin's The Creative Way, and Dilla Time.

Birth of a Culture is cowritten by the widely respected journalist Scoop Jackson.