Grandmaster Flash

Raised in the Bronx, New York, Grandmaster Flash was one of the seminal DJs at the birth of hip hop, noted for pioneering a number of turntable techniques including scratching, phrasing and back spinning. The Sugarhill Gang may have given hip hop its first hit when Rapper's Delight came out in 1979, but it was Flash and his crew the Furious Five who gave the genre a political conscience with dark tales of ghetto life on the 1982 single The Message. Responsible for moving the genre away from good-time party anthems and paving the way for Public Enemy, gangsta rap and generations of socially aware artists, the track was added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress in 2002. The 1983 anti-cocaine single White Lines (Don't Do It) proved just as legendary, reaching Number 7 in the UK, but Flash split from the Furious Five after a row with Melle Mel over royalties. He continued to work with Rahiem and Kid Creole, while bringing through new rappers on the albums They Said It Couldn't Be Done (1985), The Source (1986) and Ba-Dop-Boom-Bang (1987), before reforming the original Grandmaster Flash nd the Furious Five line up for final album On The Strength (1988).