Grandmaster Flash Pens Tell All Book
By PATRICK HUGUENIN
Wednesday, June 11th 2008,
Hip hop pioneer Joseph Saddler, better known as Grandmaster Flash, was forged in the furnace of the 1970s Bronx, cut his teeth on the disco dance floor and
established turntable techniques passed down to the deejays of today.He and his group, the Furious Five, are the only hip-hop act in the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame.
But Flash's ride to icon status was far from smooth. His perilous ascent and near ruin are chronicled in "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats" (Broadway Books, $22.95), which hit stores this week.
From his violent family life to his contentious relationship with his first label, Sugar Hill Records, to the drug addiction that very nearly killed him, the book tells all about the price of success.
"This whole book was scary for me," Flash says. "We as human beings, we don't willingly display our skeletons, our pains, our hurts - not the deep, deep, deep ones."
Flash built the Furious Five by collecting the best rappers of 1970s New York. The group went platinum, steered by record doyenne Sylvia Robinson of Sugar Hill, an executive whose bad side was a scary frontier.
"She did do some things that in today's world would probably get her head chopped off," Flash says, "but she did rule with an iron fist and we were under fear with her - although we did make some great records."
Flash's exodus from Sugar Hill Records brings the meat of the conflict and personal crisis. But this is one deejay who knows that there is life beyond
rock bottom. He's working on an album, "The Bridge," and scouring the world for talented rappers, enlisting MCs from Senegal to Sweden. The
adventure of the Grandmaster is one of beats, breakthroughs and the salvation of a career that, left in the wrong hands, could have been over in a flash.
Return to Davey D's Hip Hop Corner
