(Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images)
What Kool Herc created, Grandmaster Flash mastered. The greatest Hip-Hop DJ of all-time.
There are people who invent things. And there are people who take inventions and turn them in to something greater than their creators could have ever imagined. While Kool Herc invented the “merry-go-round” as he called it (playing breakbeats only, one after the other), Flash made it an art and a science. Flash realized that if he had TWO copies of the same record, he could make a 10 second breakbeat play for as long as he wanted. Hip-Hop was invented around breakbeats. After Flash’s breakthrough those same breakbeats became full length instrumentals. DJ’s became what we call now “diggers”. People who search endlessly through records for that one special moment they find in the middle of a random song by an unknown artist in a dusty basement. Those diggers still exist, although the perfect sample is usually what they seek now. When Flash and other DJ’s were playing breaks, THEY were the samplers. With their hands.
Flash also came up with the idea for what a DJ today could never imagine DJ’ing without. The “Crossfader”. A fader is feature on a mixer that allows DJ’s to go back and forth between turntables with the option to either go completely to the next song, OR mix the two records together. This is not only key to what we consider “mixing”, but it also allowed for another innovation (DJ Grand Wizard Theodore’s addition to Dj’ing, the scratch) to flourish.
Herc gave B-Boys and girls the soundtrack for the dance element of the culture. What Flash did would become essential for the first generation of MC’s. Respect the architects. Grandmaster Flash. Yes Yes Y’all.
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