Grandmaster Flash Quotes

For instance, if you‘re playing a record with drums – horns would sound nice to enhance it so you get a record with horns and slip it in at certain times.

All you have to know is mathematically how many times to scratch it and when to let it go – when certain things will enhance the record you’re listening to.

When I am performing live, I walk into a room, and I just try to get a feel for the vibe, and I am coming from different angles musically. I might come with a new song, I might come with some hip-hop, with some R&B. Once I find my way, then I am hitting you, and hitting you all night.

If there is a record I don’t have, I haven‘t heard it yet. My collection is always growing, but I can’t really play it anywhere – no promoter is willing to pay for my crates of vinyl to fly with me, so I have a team of people to digitise it all.

So what I’m trying to say is from a musical aspect for anybody to say that whatever they’re doing in Florida is not Hip Hop or whatever they’re doing in LA is not Hip Hop, who are these people to say that?

Hip Hop has become real constrained. The creative juices and creative flows have been diminished.

I went to junkyards, abandoned car lots. I asked supermarkets for the big jugs they put pig guts in, to make cabinets for my bass speakers.

We gotta stop fighting amongst each other. I think the only rift should be when take it the stage and try to out perform each other.

I named myself Flash many years ago, as I loved the cartoon. Then my own fans said that I should call myself ‘Grandmaster,’ because of the way I operate turntables. I put the two together and that was it.

Disco B still rolls with me now. He’s still doing his thing. He does clubs in different places. He was very instrumental in helping me perfect my craft.

We can even sing off key, but if it’s produced properly it can be a hit.

What has happened is that to some degree they have taken an attitude where they don’t listen to demos of diverse subject matters. They’re looking for demos like the record the guy on the left just did.

Normal kids in their teens want to go and date girls and do mischievous things, your hormones are jumping around, but I stayed in my bedroom in search of something.

I had to go into a studio and compose and write and press up 12 songs in 14 hours. When you’re recording a song from scratch it takes you 14 hours to do just one song.

But I had two very special people who helped to take my style to the next level. Thank God for my first MC Cowboy and my first student Grand Wizard Theodore, and to go out after creating this art form and finding everyone jamming to it – that too was pretty scary.

I needed a way to have the platter continuously spinning while I’m moving the record back and forth. I went to a fabric store. When I touched this hairy stuff – felt – I found it. I rubbed spray starch on both sides and ironed it until it became a stiff wafer. After that, I was able to stop time.

For us to keep claiming this isn’t Hip Hop and that isn’t Hip Hop doesn’t make sense to me.

Conquer your neighbourhood, conquer your city, conquer your country, and then go after the rest of the world. That’s my mantra.

Disco was brand new then and there were a few jocks that had monstrous sound systems but they wouldn’t dare play this kind of music. They would never play a record where only two minutes of the song was all it was worth. They wouldn’t buy those types of records.

I want to go to – what’s that hot country with a lot of money? – Dubai.