hypersongs

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

A South Bronx DJ and five MCs who made "The Message" in 1982, the hip-hop record that turned party rap to social commentary, and in 2007 became the first rap group in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Three MCs and Sugar Hill

The group formed in the South Bronx in 1978 around the DJ Joseph Saddler, Grandmaster Flash, who first worked with the L Brothers, Mean Gene Livingston, Claudio Livingston and Grand Wizzard Theodore, and then recruited Cowboy (Keith Wiggins), Melle Mel (Melvin Glover) and Kidd Creole (Nathaniel Glover Jr.) as the Three MCs; Scorpio (Eddie Morris) and Rahiem (Guy Todd Williams) joined later. Melle Mel was among the first to call himself an MC, and Cowboy is credited with a scat routine that helped popularize the hip hop chant. DJ Charlie Chase briefly served as group DJ before the Cold Crush Brothers formed in 1979. Their first single, "We Rap More Mellow", was credited to The Younger Generation, and in 1979 they made "Superappin" for Enjoy Records and signed to Sylvia Robinson's Sugar Hill.

"Freedom", their Sugar Hill debut in 1980, reached number 19 on the R&B chart and sold over 50,000, and "Birthday Party" followed. Flash's solo "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" (1981) is described as the first record to feature scratching and turntablism. Cornell University Library holds audio of early live performances, mostly from 1979 and 1980 at the T-Connection club.

The Message and the split

"The Message" came out on July 1, 1982 and the album The Message on October 3, 1982. In 1983, after Flash sued Sugar Hill for $5 million in unpaid royalties, "White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)" was credited to Grandmaster and Melle Mel, and Melle Mel, Scorpio and Cowboy left and formed Grandmaster Melle Mel and the Furious Five, whose album came in 1984. Flash, Kidd Creole and Rahiem went to Elektra with new members and made They Said It Couldn't Be Done, The Source and Ba-Dop-Boom-Bang; Sugar Hill owned the group name. The original line-up reunited for a charity concert at Madison Square Garden in 1987 and recorded On the Strength (April 1988), which had a lukewarm reception, and then disbanded. Cowboy died on September 8, 1989, and in 2014 Melle Mel and Scorpio began performing as Grandmaster's Furious Five.

They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, the first rap group, by Jay-Z, who said that what Les Paul and Chuck Berry did for the electric guitar, Flash did for the turntable. They received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021, and "The Message" entered the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2002, the first hip-hop recording so honored. Run-DMC, Public Enemy, the Notorious B.I.G. and Eminem cite them, and Flash's book The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats appeared in 2008, written with David Ritz. The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture holds records and a turntable used by Flash.

Albums

  • The Message 1982 · Sugar Hill

    Their debut album: seven songs, led by the 7-minute title track, recorded at Sweet Mountain in New Jersey.

Songs

  • The Message The Message · 1982

    The July 1982 single that put social commentary on a hip-hop record, written in 1980 and resisted by the group.

Sources

  1. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Wikipedia
  2. The Message (song), Wikipedia
  3. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
  4. Melle Mel stands by The Message, Fresh Air