Crib Notes

Grandmaster Flash appears in Atlanta today for a Q&A and booksigning. Free. 7:30 p.m. Tues., June 17. Borders, 3637 Peachtree Road. 404-659-1949.

Grandmaster Flash’s story has been told time and time again. But never like this.

In his new memoir, “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats,” Joseph Saddler (a.k.a Flash) and co-author David Ritz (“Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye”) dig deep into the history of one of hip-hop’s founding fathers.

Past the Quick Mix Theory he invented in the early ’70s that elevated DJing from an art to a science. Past the success of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, the first hip-hop group to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Past the music and straight to “The Message” behind it.

In the following interview snippet, I talked to Flash about just that. The song, “The Message” is still known as one of the greatest hip-hop songs ever. When it was released in 1982, “The Message” was the first rap song that stepped outside of hip-hop’s party and rhyme-toasting roots to detail the ugly side of the streets: “Don’t push me ’cause I’m close to the edge / I’m trying not to lose my head / It’s like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.”

While the hook transfixed listeners across the nation, giving birth to the raw reality reports it would take the music industry another decade to exploit and market as gangsta rap, Grandmaster Flash was quickly descending into his own uninhabitable jungle of record label woes, drug abuse and self-destruction that it took him years to escape.

Rodney Carmichael: Talk to me about the song “The Message.” After 25 years, I still think that’s the greatest hip-hop song ever. But in your book you talk about how it was like the beginning of the end for Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and I know you were starting to dabble pretty heavy in [cocaine] at the time.

Grandmaster Flash: At that time — at least for me — when we first signed to the label Sugar Hill [Records], we were craftsmen. We were craftsmen of our art. What did we know about business? So we made ‘Freedom,’ which did pretty well for us. We did ‘Nasty.’ It did pretty well for us. ‘Scorpio.’ All the joints, all the jams that you guys made big songs for us.

By the time it was time to make [‘The Message’], this is where the nightmare came in.

I started asking questions to people, and asking what’s publishing … and all this kind of stuff. And whenever I would go back to the office, people would look at me like, ‘Flash is asking too many questions. Too many questions. We can get rid of him. He’s just a DJ; he don’t say rhymes.’

I’ll never forget because I was doing a sound check, and we were on tour with Rick James. We were very close to Rick James, and I’d ask him questions about certain things. I would ask people that I was touring with certain questions about the record business that I didn’t understand. And Rick said to me, ‘You must have an incredible publishing deal,’ I was like, ‘What’s publishing?’ And then he gave me the look like, ‘You don’t know.’ In the pit of my stomach, I just felt just so fucked up right then and there. From there, when we got off tour I went to [label owner Sylvia Robinson’s] office: ‘Hey, Sylvia, can I sit down with you for a minute? Sylvia, what’s publishing?’

I’ve never seen a face turn blood red in like 30 seconds. Then I knew we were in deep shit from that point on. Her and I bumped heads, and she would call meetings. She used to call all our homes and say, Alright, you guys get on the bus or whatever and come out to New Jersey because we’re having a meeting about X or we’re having a meeting about Y or whatever. But after a while, I stopped getting the phone call. And I would hear, when the fellas got back to the Bronx, ‘Why weren’t you at the meeting?’ I said, ‘I never got called!’

Now, the record “The Message,” was a gift and a curse. Of course, whenever you heard Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, it was always five MCs on the record, and that’s the way we came up, it’s the way we got our respect, it’s the way we got our crowds and our people because you’d see one DJ and hear one DJ, and you would see and hear five MCs, whether it was on a tape or whether it was on a record. And when that project was on the slate to be done — ‘The Message,’ I’m talking about — she would ask us for a period of time about doing a record having to do with the real life things that happen in the ’hood. And we kind of ducked it for a minute.

And every few months she would ask, ‘Hey, how’s that project coming that I asked you guys about? Then after a while, almost a year went by and she was like, ‘Listen, I need that project. I need that damn project. Now what’s going on here?’ And then when she cornered us, then we knew we had to get on it because we were working on the album at this time. So we had to stop working on the album and work on this one song. And when it was time to record I find out that all five of my MCs are not going to go on this record….

I’m saying, ‘Sylvia, please, let my boys go in. Let’s break it up. Let’s chop it up so that everybody gets a part. Let’s keep this template the same way.’ I guess she was looking at me like I was nagging her. I’m saying, ‘Please, this song will still have the same impact that you think it will have,’ because she had a hunch on this…. I think I had five of the best MCs on the planet at that time. For her to say only one of my prize MCs was going in that booth killed me. Like, it’s going to cause a confusion of our identity if we do this. And I kept begging her. I kept asking her to stop the recorder, please let my boys go in. Please, please, please, please, please. She’s like, ‘The only person who’s going in to do the song is Melle [Mel].’

And then the second insult was that the percussionist of the band was going to be the second MC on the track. I’m like, ‘What? What the fuck is going on?’ I’ve got five Mike Tysons in their prime. You’re going to tell me that this guy who’s never done this before is going to replace one of my five? And then it just went down hill. After that, it was like to put Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five on the song when it’s only one of the five on the record. And then ‘New York, New York,’ one rapper did it. It just continued on and on and on. And I guess me being the leader of the group and looking at the faces of my boys — they sucked it up. But I looked past all that. I knew this shit was killing them not to be on these records. That was more important.

I knew that we were going on the road, and we were really great visually. That’s what made us the best group in New York because visually, one person was on the mic. He would step up, and then the next person would step up. Boom. That’s some Temptation shit, and the next person would be on the mic. To see it was like some magic, and she just kind of threw that whole magic out the window.

I’m not stupid. [I know] it was a great song. It was an incredible, incredible song. But the way she put it together was really weird for me. And then when the song came out, we were playing with groups like Rick James, the Commodores … like the biggest people on the planet, and we were headlining. I’m like, ‘How the fuck are we headlining over these incredible people? How is this possible?’ And then to go home and say that we owe royalties to her. Huh? We owe you money?… She showed us a royalty statement that said we owed $286,000 for a song that was recorded in the studio. I’m like, ‘How did you come up with this figure?’

Now me and her, we’re really bumping heads. We’re really, really bumping heads. I’m going into depression. My main MC has now almost sided with Sylvia. I can’t get him back. The group is falling apart. I mean, this is like my baby, my brothers and sisters. I’m physically just sitting there, and I’m watching them fall apart.

This catapults me further into cocaine. It catapults me into drinking. It catapults me into whatever. Now I’m like, I’m almost giving up now. I go from sniffing cocaine to smoking it. But if it wasn’t for my girlfriend Paulette at that time and my big sister Penny going through the drug houses and finding me and embarrassing me to the point where I had to come out because I was so fucking embarrassed, if it wasn’t for them doing that shit I’d probably be dead today, man. And that’s word up.

So Sylvia — I ain’t going to say it was all bad  [at Sugar Hill Records]…. She just didn’t keep [Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five] in its same form that it could have been. So when you guys see the video or you see whatever, it’s one MC on the record, but there’s four other ones that are just as qualified. What about all that we built?

It’s just like, I guess for the life of me I just wonder why did Melle [Mel] even go in the booth? He should have just said, “No, I can’t do this.” If we did it together, 10, 12 years prior, just scraping in the streets … now you’re going to break it? Why get there and not just say, ‘Listen, I’m sorry, Sylvia, but I can’t. I can’t do that.’ Because coming up, everything was my responsibility. But once we got into the record business, the main vocalist became the pet. Alright if you’re the pet, OK, fine, I’ll step back. I’ll be second. I don’t mind. But hold [together] this band though. Don’t allow the company to try to just wash your mind with anything other than who we are. And for whatever reason, he didn’t stick by it. I don’t know what took place, but I know that after a while, he started doing all these records by himself without the Five.

In a lot of ways, that’s kind of been the story of hip hop: DJs are the foundation, but the industry hypes up the MCs. But it kind of seems like we’ve come full circle in the past few years with the elevation of the mixtape. Now you’ve got people using Serrato [digital DJ equipment] and people arguing about whether or not that’s real DJing. What do you think about the state of DJing today?

I think it’s incredible. Let me tell you why. Because … when I was coming up, I was pushing the envelope in my own way. I was doing things with a piece of vinyl that people didn’t do or not do. I was taking something…you know, I was taking a turntable that’s normally playing… you pick up the arm, you put it down on a record, and you let it play. I took that piece of, that inanimate object, and I made an instrument out of it. So I was pushing the envelope then. And I’m a scientist first; I’m a DJ second. So for me, modern technology is great. And I think that with Serrato, and then there’s one that I am the face of, and that’s Traktor Scratch, I think that the world of science and computers and technology is pushing the envelope. You have to keep pushing the envelope. Otherwise, science becomes stagnant. You’ve got to keep pushing it at all levels. The only time I’ve got a problem with modern technology is the live stage.

How’s that?

I think that every prominent MC should have a DJ spinning joints. You got 10 hits, it should be a DJ throwin’ ‘em on. It shouldn’t be a fucking DAT playing behind the curtain, playing your shit. Or the guy at the console pressing the buttons. I don’t like that part of it. If I come to see Jay-Z, I want to see Just Blaze throwin’ them joints. I want to see that. If I see Puff, if he’s got DJ Scratch or whoever he’s got up there throwin’ the joints, that’s how I want to see it.

For an MC to be standing up there without a DJ is just — the picture looks a little bit weird to me…. At one point, they were saying that MCs stopped using DJs because their records would jump on the stage. But now modern technology has found a way that if the turntable got turned upside-down, backwards, it won’t jump now. So why don’t you use a DJ? Why not? It’s the actual, true elements of our black-created art form. Why not?

The ’80s flavor that you all helped to usher in has come back in a major way. The younger generation has become very style conscious now. You all were always real flamboyant with the leather I don’t know if you’re tuned into What do you think about the state of hip hop nowadays?

I’m very, very happy. Hip-hop has been coming full circle like you said. I hope that I live to see every MC that makes it big have a DJ. The style, the jewelry, the clothes they’re wearing — that has been around forever. We always had our own trend to anybody else that was anti-hip-hop. Like anti-hip-hoppers dressed a certain way. We were like, ‘Yuck!’ We had our own way. We would wear a particular sneaker and a particular or a particular whatever.We’ve always dressed to the beat of a different drum. That’s just the way we do things. At one time, when everything was first created it was just a cult. Now, it’s a culture. It’s real life. So I’m cool with it. Even musically….

Like at one time, hip-hop was almost stripped down to just the drums, which was kind of cool. But I just think that melody was slowly becoming a thing of the past. But now I listen to like a Kanye where he has compositions under his vocals. It’s good to see that. I just listened to Tha Carter III album, Lil Wayne. He’s got composition under his vocals. I think that is amazing to be doing that. I’m good, man, I’m good.

You’ve got a new album coming out?

Yeah, it’s called The Bridge. Between me promoting this book and promoting this Traktor Scratch digital DJ device, doing my Sirius radio thing, I’m working on this album. And I am trying to have it done by late September. That’s what I’m shooting for.

So do you plan to have a lot of MCs featured on it?

Yes. I think what I’m going to do is…I want to give back on this one, Rodney. I want to get some unknown talent, which I have. I want to get some old-school talent with some new-school talent. And then I also want it to mirror my life experiences as an artist. I’ve had the pleasure to have gone around the world in every legal country four times. I’ve been almost everywhere other than maybe Iraq or some other shit. But the free world, I’ve been everywhere. So I’ve seen some things that were quite amazing — like a French MC. I’m like, ‘I don’t know what the fuck he’s saying, but that shit…the way he’s flowin’ is incredible.” I’ve seen Swedish MCs; I’ve seen German MCs; I’ve seen Japanese MCs. So on this record, man, I’m going to make a serious attempt to pull that together. I think that’s what we’re missing here. I think that’s the only thing we’re missing in hip-hop.

When you compare the hip-hop culture to other music, I think we’re the biggest right now. Where country [music] used to be the biggest, I think we’re the biggest right now. But the only thing that’s missing is that the two worlds haven’t come together. America and overseas haven’t come together yet. I would love to turn on the radio and hear a [Young] Jeezy with a Swedish MC. Even if it’s just on one verse only, just to hear that. Just that bringing us together — I think that’s seriously missing as well.

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