INTERVIEW: Grandmaster Flash Master Class: Quick Mix Theory, Slipmats, Sampling + More

Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club.

Morning everybody, it's the j n V. Charlamagne to God, we are the Breakfast Club. You got a special guest in the building.

Come on, man, one of the architects of this thing we call hip hop. Man, one of the people who helped later foundation for this thing we called hip hop.

We wouldn't have jobs if it wasn't for this brother.

Right, wouldn't be a DJ, if it wasn't for this brother, and most people out there, most DJs out there wouldn't be DJs. If it wasn't No, all DJs wouldn't be it wasn't for this brother, Ladies and gentlemen, grand Master Flash, welcome, thank.

You, good morning, black Man, thank you, thank you for having me Man.

I appreciate it. Come on, man, happy to have you.

Absolutely appreciate this man.

You know, we celebrated the fifty years of hip hop, you know, this year, and Nby and I was on the radio having a conversation and it just felt like, you know, the architects, like that era of the eighties, you know, wasn't getting honored properly, and none of us to hear if that, if that foundation isn't late you said the eighties seven, the seventies. Yeah, the seventies from the beginning, and the eighties I feel like weren't getting

And that's one of the reasons why I feel that it's paramount that I do lectures. I do corporate towards the lectures, and I've been doing them for private people, but now I kind of want to do this for the public so they could understand that this thing didn't just fall out of a tree. It didn't just go from the seventies to where we are. You know, there was four DJs that did this. Coolhork was on the west, AB was Bronx River, African DJ Breakout was the north.

Quick hardware where it would just work a lot of these things.

As I was telling you, Envy, I had to do this with nothing going into the backyards and you know, getting old receivers and old turntables and stuff and kind of like jury rigging my sound system.

For people listening when he says the West to South to nor if he's not talking about West Coast, he's talking about New York. The Bronx, the Bronx, Bronx. I wanted to clear it up. And also, you know I was talking to of course grandmass Flash behind the scenes. A lot of he didn't know, you know, where we had the ability to go to these stores and buy equipment.

He had to actually make it.

So his first sound system actually came from old cars in the junk yard. He would pull the speakers out of the cars in the junk yard and make sound systems to play at parks and parties and wherever wherever it was. So you had to actually know electronics. And it just wasn't just about DJing, right, So what what

Yeah, and when I was a toddler, everything in that house that was electrical. I was intrigued, Oh how did that happen? So I used to unscrew the backs of the stereo in the living room. My sister's hair dries the table radio, all these things. And also what got me into this when I was a toddler. My dad was a collector of records. And I'm on this respectable airwaves. So I will just say when I got caught touching his vinyl as a toddler, he used to heavily repermnd me.

Right, I can say that. And what I used to do was a kid, I.

Waited for him to go to work, and when the door slammed, I went back in that closet and the rule was, you know, don't touch the brown box in the living room.

And I used to watch Dad when he came home from work how he operated it.

So I figured out how to get into this closet where his stuff was, and I would take this square thing that had a black disc and he would put it in this brown and sound would come out of it.

That was probably my first love.

But then moving forward, guys, when I heard a drum break from one of the most important black artists of that time, his name was Curtis Mayfield.

Move on up that break and then you and I can relate here. That break was.

About i'd say about five minutes of just the drums.

And I thought all records was like that.

So when I started collecting my records, the drum break was like five ten seconds. So what also got me into the DJing is I used to watch the disco DJs like my Boyer Flowers, Pete Jones, and I noticed that their transitions were glass smooth. But then my boys knocked on my door at my mom's house and said, we want to take you to this other side of town to watch these other DJs. And respectfully, I was wondering, why is it that everything that he was doing was

He playing like that?

You know, because the rules are the laws, and you know, especially if you got people on the dance floor, the idea is to keep everybody in unison correct. They should not be trying to find it beat as you transition. So from that point on, it's when I came up with the quick mixed theory. You know what mix theory from a mathematical perspective. I took sonics and through it out the window. Because if I play a song, I

And this became the way.

And then what happened was these incredible people called hip hop producers took this style of the seamless loop and I'm gonna show you that on the wheels to steal and.

Understand Me'm saying your quick mixed theory turn turned into what people called sampling basically correct.

That's so that's exactly what you bring it back from the beginning. But one thing you learn from this interview with grand Master Flash is he's not just a musician when it comes to turntables.

He's actually no disrespect.

He's a nerd and geek, like he wants to understand the mechanics of it. Most people just want to understand the success of it and be successful and be a big name. But he under actually understands the mechanics of music, DJ and trans positioning records, record players, mixes, just and this is just having a thirty second conversation with Have I figured out.

What I found so interressing about this? In the last five minutes you explained where DJing started yep, and where hip hop production start correct, So people will call you an architect and say you're wanted the founding fathers of hip hop.

That is why, absolutely thank you. And I gotta tell you it's like.

I've been listening to a lot of depressing the promotion, you know, from last summer to now, and this particular area of who, what, where and why is not talked about. Why aren't we talking about what Bam did? And quite frankly, the gang thing was really bad back then Shaw and if he didn't calm that down, they would have not been to a block parties, you know what I'm saying. And then as DJ breakout in the North, he came up with a sound system where he used garbage cans

It's called the birth of a culture.

Corporate tourist, and I've been doing a lot of these things privately, but I think that now I have to go to the universities to the YMCAs and do this public. I'm gonna do two major lectures, one in Manhattan and one of the Bronx where it's gonna be free, and I want people to really mechanically understand how I came up with this quick mixed theory and how it connects to where we are right now. You know, I'm gonna keep it real with you. I didn't create hip hop.

I mean that's especially this year because the focus is on the artist, but it should be a lot more focused on the DJ.

And the producer.

All I was gonna ask, you know, how do you feel when you look at something that you created, right?

And you created out of love?

Right?

What you said just now? You didn't say it was money. You didn't say I did this because I wanted money, you said, I enjoyed it. I love listening to music, I love playing in the park. And then you see in this the commercial success of hip hop.

Right.

I sent Charlamagne something this morning about Charris One saying why he didn't want to perform at the Grammys. He felt like the Grammy's never respected hip hop. So why come now, how do you feel when you see the commercial success of hip hop and all these brothers and sisters making money, and all these companies making money off of hip hop, but some of the founders are not making the money that's deserved because if it wasn't for you guys, nobody wouldn't be able to make that money.

That's a twofold answer.

Just think and be this thing that I did could have missed, And if this all would have missed, I wouldn't be here talking to you right now. So that's one side of it.

It exploded.

But there are like, there are some companies out there giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars. I've seen this on the internet just recently. But they are those men that are in a hood that didn't have the commercial success. Nobody's saying, hey, here's five hundred thousand dollars for you or one hundred thousand dollars. They're not saying that, Like there are those who lost their life that are not even here to even enjoy this, and they have families,

Know how the record is made.

They're the one that stays in the studios for two and three days to make sure the record goes from start to finish before the masters is handed in, you know.

So for me and people should know more about Coohirk and their team. They should know who Coke the Rocket is.

Like they're going around saying he was a rapper, he said DJ I used to watch him, you know. And in this Timmy tim And is the original Clark Ken. You know, people should know who breakout team is Barren you know, and Bam Body and Jazzy J and Grand Master Flashing Graham was your Theaterore. Like all these people and all these names, you don't hear nothing, yes, right, talk to about them when people are putting out this press, they're not even coming to ask, well, Flash, what do

And this is one of the reasons why.

Because I tour one hundred and fifty countries a year, so financially I'm good, I'm cutting all that in half because I gotta go to these universities. I got to go to these YMCAs and I gotta teach these babies of where this thing comes from. Because what saddeness mean is this. If you are from a black family, you know who Miles Davis is. If you're from a white family, you know who the Rolling Stones is. Why is this so much of a blur of who, what and why we're and how when it comes to hip hop?

Why is that?

I think we gotta be the generation to do that because to your point, if you're sixty years old, now you're probably a grandfather, grandmother.

Our grandparents weren't listening to.

Hip hop, you know, Okay, but now when we got grandparents and grandfathers, grandparents who were listening to hip hop, and then parents who grew up in hip hop, they can tell their kids eight, this is where it started, right.

Because, like you said, most if you if you're in the age of forty to fifty, a lot of them, hip hop started with right. I remember, that's where it started from. Because even me, like, you know, my parents weren't in a hip hop but I was. But the first record I ever bought was Run.

My dad was seventy something. He didn't he didn't like hip hop at the time. He wanted he was like, you need to listen to James Brown, Temptation, the original rapper. You know, he didn't know nothing about hip hop. He didn't want to hear none of that.

You know. Well, I think for me and this is such a wonderful time period. But just think of it like this here, and you know, sometimes this makes me want to cry. Sometimes is come August, like the mayor gave me August fourth and cool Hurgust August eleventh, Come August twelfth, there's going to be a brand new trend. So we have to get it right now as a black art form that is core, that has done so much for so many people. Of course, we have.

To get it right between now and August.

Eleventh, or it's going to go down in history incomplete or incorrect. And that scares the crap out of me.

So it's safe to say you don't believe the DJ he gets to respect they should when it comes to their contraby.

Absolutely not, because especially the hip hop DJ that understands the quick mixed story and the mechanics which I will show you, because that led to the sampling and that led to these records being made, and that's what we're celebrating. So we're celebrating the entire cake. But let's go back and celebrate the celebrate the the uh, the eggs and the flour and the water and the vanilla, how the cake was made.

The process, the process.

Let's celebrate that.

Let's see some of the process.

Let's do that.

Yeah, actually speak louder than what?

Now?

Could I could? I go right there? All right, we need a pen. I need one of these pens. So in the shop. I want to tell you envy. Yes, sir, I appreciate you. Man. You said something a couple of minutes ago that you thought I would be insulted.

I grew up as a geek. I was not hip. I was afraid to wrap the chicks. I stayed in my house, grabbingunk from the junkyard and trying to piece together somewhat of a sound system. And then I came up with a mathematical equation to what is hip hop? And I called it black math. Okay, quick mix theory.

Black math.

It was impossible for me to write a sonic equation because a sonic equation would then fall under kinetics, and then it would have been really deep for me to write this, So I wrote it from a mathematical perspective. The brain captures a melody in four bars, and that's why I called it the.

Quick mixed theory black math.

Every DJ uses the hand mechanics of this DJ technique. This got me in so much trouble because I was putting crayons on the record, putting in my hand on the records. Connoisseurs wanted to nail me, disrespect me. They really hated me, shah because they would put the record inside of a little white paper and put it inside and use the velvet brush to clean it off, and they would carefully put it inside the jacket.

Me.

Fuck that. So I got a lot of flack for doing this. So now there's vinyl one. I'm a horrible drawer.

So good, we get it.

We get it and mix in the middle, vinyl two mm hmm, vinyl two. So this one. The crowds listening to this.

Going clockwise, and this is the one that has to go counterclockwise. And this particular style of DJing and every hip hop DJ has adopted makes the tone arm ninety nine zero point nine percent.

Useless. But I would watch those DJs that did this heavy on the tone arm, and.

Every time they would transition, it was a train way four bars.

Forward. It's equal to six counterclockwise revolutions equals full loop extraction.

Every DJ and every hip hop producer that that made sample music use this. This theory and me and Envy we were talking earlier and he was he said something to me, some people never seen turntables.

That's right, that's real.

I've got so much to do. I've got so many places to go shah, so many people. Because I don't know if Breakout's going to get an interview off cool Herk or Coke, it's going to get an interview or bam. So right now it's pretty much on me. So the race is on into August.

So now with this process for people that don't know that's not a DJ, is what you're basically saying is back in the day, you came up with this formula because there was no instrumental so you had to create your own right or.

The drum break or the drum break short.

You had to make it longer so people can actually dance, and the transition will be like how transitions should be. So what you hear now when somebody, especially New York where most DJs slam music, meaning you'll go from a fast record one hundred tempo to a seventy tempo with no transition and you slam it. So this was a creation where people wouldn't stop dancing and the party would go thoroughly through and people wouldn't even miss a step right,

For the four and six.

That was the inversion of four to six factor is what I called it. And I say four plus six it is ten. So if there was a rapper in front of me and he needed a quiet area of the record where the singer wasn't singing, and it was the least people playing with the drummer, and I'm going to play a few of those things.

It shows that, it shows people see it.

Can you answer one questions? You know?

Of course, you know they talk about gramdmass flashing the Furious five, you know, produced the message, but they.

Said first DJ to get a Grammy, by the way, but that.

Yes, But I've read some things where they said you had nothing to do with the production of it.

Okay, I had something to do with all of it, because that company chased me to get my group serious, the whole group. There was the club I played called disco Fever and I brought hip hop to this club, and Sally Abatello gave me. I wanted a Saturday. He gave me a Tuesday, of course, so most clubs do.

They gave me.

I called it Terrible Tuesday off Night, right, But in about two months time, I was live on that Saturday.

Thank you, sal You know.

So for me, the message, probably I had least to do with, but I had most to do with it because it was my group. And I'm sure they used your technique, right, they do they use They used my technique to make all their records. The Message was an original record, but they knew when they had the Sugar Hill Gang, they heard of us.

In the streets.

The streets was already ringing Grandmaster Flash and the Phurious Five. So she used to come to Terrible Tuesdays every Tuesday, just to see how it was, how it was going down.

So who is she, Sylvia Robins?

You know? So on Hill. Did I have anything to do with that record? Minimal?

But I had everything to do with it because she needed to have us.

So here we are.

I want to have one more question for you, get on the turntables. How do you feel about DJs today with the auto mixing buttons and the different programs that make it easy.

I'm using right now, right, and you know what it is. I put it this way.

I'm a scientist first, I'm a geek first, so I've been pushing an envelope for fifty two years, so I respect anybody that's doing it, but follow the laws of the art transition. I think the things that drive me crazy when I go out, which is every now and then envs.

You know, I'm.

Listening to the DJ and it's the train wreck thing. You know that there really drives me crazy. A lot of today's music is really one tempo bass, so it's easy to go from one to the other. So how you crashing this record into this record with us back? We had to use the pitch quite a bit to make this record beat match with lost record. Of course, these records here are almost coming out of the oven.

There?

Makes me totally crazy, and it goes against the laws of what we learned.

Let's see what see some transitions.

Matt's do it if you can.

The first thing I guess if you can what you talked about the first how you would make your own instrumental backing.

Let me play the first record.

That got Because some people think that there was another DJ that inspired me. I came from a totally different perspective, scientific and mathematical. So I came from nothing with my stylech nobody put me on. I ended this record was the grand recond record. Why I wanted to DJ Curtis Mayfield nineteen.

Seventy, How old are you twelve? Going to the thirteen? Wow, I'm sixty six?

Now let's.

Break is still going? The break is still going.

Five minutes right?

This record was so for life for me. I was why is that? Why is everything else so short?

And when I started playing other genres of record, because I was raised in a home where it appearing on which sister was on the stereo, I would hear motown, disco, funk, jazz, blues, R and B.

Like I grew up where music had no color.

A dope jam could be a white jam or black jam, of foreign jam and American jam. So so Charlotte Magne, I said, I was gonna I needed your help, right, So can you come over here please, shaw. Try to scratch this record, try right right right.

So he's a DJ allegedly, I don't know if can do this.

So so listen now, yeah, try to try and try to try to try to try to bring the back the record back, just just but be gentle, be gentle with your fingers and try to just.

Go right back.

Practice trying to go back, trying to go count the Topwise, he's too hard.

Right now, now, try to try to go back. Heavy.

No, he's a heavy. It's a heavy, okay, gonta stop. So my mother was a seamstress, right, so I was lucky to touch polyester, rayon, con silk, leather swayed.

Well, So you created the.

Slip man, yes, I oh my goodness, you created the slip man too.

That's crazy.

So let me tell you what. Let me break it.

I'm gonna pop the collar for you. So when you buy the turntables, it comes with a rubber piece. Right, the rubber piece you cannot DJ with, so all d days have to toss it. So you had a slip mat. We didn't know where a slip mat was. So back then the record came in in a plastic package. We would open up the plastic package and make our own slip mat.

The slip matters on this one.

But that was grand Master Flashes idea. I just told you so.

You got right there, flas Flash.

I ran it to that.

Problem, right.

I grabbed an album and I ran to the nearest material store and I touched rayon silk or cotton, polyester, leather.

Felt. Now, the problem with felt.

Is when you put it on your when when you buy a portion of it.

Yep, it's limp whom my mother was it looking?

And first I would cut it out besides of an album, right, And I would when my mother was a look, And I went up in the closet in her cabin in the kitchen and I got spray starch and I made.

It so that it was stiff. But I called it a wafer.

And the reason why I called it a wafers because during the Easter, Mom would dress us up to go to the church and the neighbor's church, and you know that little white that that white thing they give you during the East. I called it a wafer. And it went from what that is.

To this damn you didn't get to trademark any.

Jesus Christ. A minute, wait, a minute.

It doesn't end there because I still got some resistance on a certain table.

With just this.

So when Mom would make baked chocolate chip cookies, she would use this paper that felt like.

Oh yeah, yeah yeah.

So now I put the.

The plastic the wax on the platter, and I put this on top of that. So now the platter moved comfortably clockwise while I can go pound o' clockwise.

Of the quick knicks theory. See, these are the things I.

Need to teach people about that this thing, they'd just fall out of a tree.

And look at some of this press today they're like, all right, hip hop.

Is fifty and there was this party at Boom.

Is that it kipping a whole process.

But it's skipping the whole process, but it's gipping the whole process of people who actually put in the energy and work. So for me, I had no idea. Right, you just follow all the DJs and other DJs.

What they do.

They open up the thing, they get rid of that rubber piece, they cut the plastic, and that's how you DJ. But if it wasn't for Flash's mind of thinking this way, most DJs wouldn't have that.

Now come here, now, now put your hand on the gently.

See now it's the movie.

Yeah yeah, oh my gosh. And that's the problem. Every d everybody thinks that that's the problem. So let's play some music now do it so so now people don't realize it. But like the producer.

Drey Premiere Pete Rock Battle Cat, Like I could go on and on and on this sampling thing.

This is how the sampling thing tied in h to the DJ. Let's take this sample.

Name.

But this song is called Sweet Green Teals by Seals and CROs All. This is the extra but mm hmm, bust around, put my hands master, see.

Wow, wow, wow, right, care for y'all, Jesus, that was the bullshit. Wow.

We didn't let it go there.

So now, using a quick mixed theory with the producers, there's the two new machines that come into play, the computer and the sampler. So it would take that same let's say quantity of information, put it onto a floppy disk, put it into the computer and the sampler, and hit the spacebart until the computer loop. This it's the same thing that I was doing circularly, but now it was with the new technology.

So let's go lit mode.

So if you just why if you're listening, he's bringing it back and forth without a loop sampler. He's doing it from his hands in a way that you can't even tell he's doing it.

So if you want a dance floor, you will never know what I was doing correct. And this is a difference between us need to tone arm with DJs that come from our same community and train wrecking. First is the quick mixterior where the arm is ninety nine point nine percent useless.

Let's go to while he's doing to the Next thing I always want to tell people too, is now DJ's having a lot simpler because they have serato, so you could actually see.

The keys of where you can do it.

Back then he would actually have to memorize where it was on the wax, or he would have to put a piece of cassette taped they on the crayon, on the crayon and draw it on the record to know where he would have to go back to.

Now I see what the DJ used to sweat so much in the seventies and eighties.

God rest his soul, Christopher, what's my wrap ups? And I was with DJ.

Wow, Now if you're listening, he's bringing it back using the quick mixed theory.

The d jing is no sample, it's just him Wow, let's go a little deeper.

Wow. Oh, and a lot of these samples. So when people say to me, will flash through a hip hop set, I'm playing white music, I'm playing black music, I'm playing for our music and playing American music pop, rock, jazz, blues, funk, just gonna earn people because this is what we had before it became modern.

Correct, this is all we had. So let me ask you a question, why you're doing this?

So a lot of these loops that you're going back and forth with that you were playing at the clubs, These are loops that you would be doing at a party that I'm sure one of these producers heard you do it and say, oh, I'm a sample lest to make it the record probably gotcha, probably because there's no way. And now I can hear somebody hearing that Bust of Rhymes record without a DJ playing and be like that's going to be a smash, Like that had to be.

I heard this, and this is why the DJ is so important, Like I just don't understand.

Rap, real question, these are the things will people need to really understand?

What is so important about the producer and a DJ. You people that press people.

You're not talking about this. You're not coming to ask me anything you asked me.

I'll tell you. Oh you just blaze reduce the ship out of this record. Oh my god.

Wow.

And this is just like a this is a nobody.

This record was probably been double leg but it takes the genius of reproducer to know what this is.

And this is what the record really sounds like. We didn't give a funk about that part, right there, ladies, And.

This is what this is what this is what you call digging in the crase, This is what I called it.

I'm texting all the young DJs that work here, like y'all should really be in here with this grandmathter flash lesson.

I told you that. I'm texting like you should really be here.

I told you so, I'm fan. Let's let let's take a little deeper. Let's place your sick individual man, your mind is crazy. Please, I gotta I gotta ask you, what is it?

Nothing flash? We're gonna see this just like this.

I gotta Okay, Yes, why why don't you know when I when I was battling DJ and doing that, I would turn the teams the turntables the long way so I wouldn't hit it when I was scratching. Why do you keep you as the regular way because most TJ turned it the long way.

That's the way when I was creating this.

This is the way I learned it because I watch the disco DJs and they will always forward. It's just that when I watch the DJs that were in our young community, they will forward too. But it was just somewhat of a nightmare. So now I want to go analogue with no help, no net. And this is where you have to learn how to drive. If you didn't know how to drive.

This is a straight analog, no laptop, no nothing.

Your four arms will be strong because you had to carry crates to the club.

So the mark when I did this to records, record connoisseurs DJs that were usually the the tone arm style, hated my guts, like, who do you think you are putting your fingertips all over.

The records?

Now what I'm gonna do is and I got a shortage to you, envy nom. I was telling you four boys forward, yes, and then when I went four four revolutions back, I wasn't in the wrong place.

I walked away for like a month because I was stuck. Why is it if four bars are going forward, why can't I go four bars?

Count the clockwise And it was in my face thoty three and a third the third counter constitute for the additional two extra ones.

I have to go back to re arrive to the top of the break.

So I used I use.

The tone to just count how many times.

This line passes the tone arm and I knew I would be back at the top of the break. And this is to seemless loop that the producers adopted to put into the computer. This sister quick mixed theory. That is purist.

That's the thirty three and the third. That's why you call himself dead. I'm sure DJ thirty three and the third. I don't hear the quban who thought got thirty three and the third?

That's crazy?

Why he's setting that up?

You got it?

Okay?

No, I don't hear it. Turn up a little bit. Maybe the levels on there, okay? Is it good in the ground, humming a little bit of ground and some of it. Let's check that ground real.

You don't know how to do that? No more?

Of course, I do. You might believe you might have to lick the back and I need a one good time to toue true.

Oh he I'm a DJ flash don't know let him man, don't man, mister you I'm gonna t.

I'm gonna test your heart before you get out of here. I want to see if you still know how to do that.

I started, I started.

Don't get nervous.

I wanted to know how to do this in the crib. Okay, he's gonna, he's gonna now. Yeah, sometimes we hook up and the grounds are not right or the r c A is a little off. Yeah, did you lick the ship? See that? You gotta look the back of it for the connection to be good. So I want to look. You know, I don't want to do that. You know, we ain't. We ain't doing that.

You know most DJs licked their fingers and touch the back of it. It's like blowing the cartridge on the Nintendo game.

You think you gotta do it looking and blowing.

Shut up? Yeah we were good now, Okay, it works. See okay, so guys, you sleep the seamless loop still got a little ham on the right side.

I'm gonna play a couple of records, ladies and gentlemen, And this is the quick mixtre be at its deepest.

Four boss forward six counterclockwise. Let's go one to count.

One two three, four five six check throw one two three four five check throw Wow.

And this works.

Pop, rock, jazz, blues folks. Once I figured out that third, we call this hip hop. They called it rock, and their family, we call this hip hop. Come up next, get ready to be count.

One two three, four five six check throw one two three, four five six check.

Throw.

The four six thing works on any race, creed color groove.

Wow, what two three, four five six.

Then find sure.

One two three, four five six check one two three, four five six check.

The four six thing works on any type of record with the view. But then sometimes there's an exception to the rule. Maybe it's only two bars, and if it's two bars, now we'll go through four bars fifth counterclockwise. Now it's two bars. Now it's three counterclockwise to make a full loop.

One two three check, go one two three check go one two three check go.

And this guy's playing right. I'm lost.

I get it, But that's the question.

Four balls forward right, Yeah, but it's not really four balls because it's thirty three and the third So that extra third that that makes makes up for the six when you bring it back, right, do the math?

Gotcha? Wow? So so what you think? This is what stuck me? This is why I got stuck?

One mm hmmm, two three four one q worrie war. I'm in the wrong place. I'm in the wrong place. I walked away from this steam. I'm like, damn, what is wrong? And I was staring at it all the time. God is good the magic.

Why don't you think DJs follow that?

Right?

And I'm gonna ask you why, right, because I touch your equipment.

For if you still know how to use it?

If you for most DJs, right, what what they used to do is.

So when you do that right now, what they would have to do.

Is you have to go go until you don't hear it anymore?

Right, but see, but but sometimes it breaks in the middle though, right.

But you know, if you don't get bad science to this and I didn't go into that is you have to know how it sounds going backwards.

My Good Times is a perfect example. It goes like you go do good time, no, no, no, no, you hear good.

Good backwards, and then you know you're at the top of the gut of good times.

Like you gotta learn records how they sound backwards.

But that's the advanced form of it, and I'm trying to keep it very basic and I love it.

I love it because more DJs would really understand it. So this right here, right, this part right here right when I used to see you do I'm side right when you're where you.

Crabbing right or slashing right? Where did that come from? That came from the hand mechanics of the quick mixedterary. Because here's how I see it. Whether you are.

Cutting or seamless looping or rubbing the record back and forth with the fader open scratching, or if you are crabbing, all it is is just an advanced form of opening and closing the panometer, which is the cross fader.

Correct And why did you why did you create that? I mean, it's amazing sound. I did it when I used to battle. But what made you say this is a sound I'm creating with the with the sounds, you know, I mean, that.

Was okay, you know, but when I heard it, Jeff scratched fasted Newmark talk about yeah, one of the best. They like I am the eventa of the hand mechanics.

But all it is, if you think about it, is just a matter of when you open and close the fada and what you're doing with the vinyl. So now, so when you are crabbing, you're moving a vinyl a little faster, but you're opening and closing the panama the quicker. But it's all the hand mechanics. The hand mechanics is mind and the levels. Like you Si did this, this kid by the name of Cubert, Like Cubert, he's not even he's not even human.

And and and uh, jeff, y'all would make y'all could make people dance by bringing the record backwards and crabbing.

And it was.

It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen in Cubert definitely. And the bad thing about Cubert is you really didn't see Cubert.

You just heard his tapes, right, So incredible as your question shout out to my to my My first successful student gram was the theater.

How do you how do you correlate counting the bars on the turntable the MC's counting bars in the booth.

It's the same thing. Okay, it's it's actually the same thing. It's just that when they're speaking, they're counting their verbal bars. I'm counting musical balls. And what's paramount, Shaw is I have to keep it steady. So I can't not while they're saying they're right, I gotta keep it really steady. And this is what the seamless loop is. So the seamless loop is what he called cutting. And the thing that what he.

Bugs you with people is they say, I want you to scratch.

This is scratching is just one of the elements more like cutting.

It's like, actually, a scratch becomes very import.

And when you're scratching against the music that's already playing, or if you're crabbing against the music that's already playing, you know what I'm saying, Or you're transforming. So these are the things, guys that I really have to go to the universities. Absolutely, go to the y m c A's and and and will you show people that this thing called hip hop didn't just and then just fall out of a tree, Shaw.

It just did it. You did a birth of a birth of the culture masterclass at the Kennedy Center.

Right, Yes, that.

I got two encores. It was absolutely was absolutely wonderful. So now I'm going to be doing birth of a Culture lectures and in the corporate world, but I'm gonna do some public ones too because people need to understand.

Much respect to the first party, but there was much more to get us here.

And that's where people need to understand that this thing took engineering, mathematics, ingenuity and taking this item and squeezing it with that item to make this all work. Because I come from a time when it was none.

It was none of this.

Absolutely you know what I'm saying, and that there is what I would wish the press would come ask us, come, come, ask us, So who.

Made all of the money off of all of these things that you created for all of them?

Did? Wow?

I'm talking about like what's far as trademarks, copyrights? Like who all of them accept me? But you know something, who asked me this question? What I had to do all over again? I do it all over again, of course way because I love what I do.

I'm like, this thing has got me in more trouble with my significant other, my children. You know, I I'm not proud that I had to leave my children so much to tour until leave to get away. But other than that, like I'm madly in love with this and that's it's just that right now out during this this this pivotal time for this thing disappears on the twelfth of August.

I gotta get where I gotta get and I gotta.

Teach these young journalists and the people that do these kind of things, like the babies, like listen, this is this is what it was.

What about what about a book? I know you got the Adventures of Grand Master Flast, but what about a book. I'm gonna do another one with detail.

A lot of this, and because see the thing is an I fall victim to it too. It's like you learn something. And a lot of times we're so microwave happy, like we want it fast and we want to do it now that we don't necessarily learn the history of where it came from, you know, which is sad. But in my defense, back then we didn't have there was no internet. There was no way to learn, you know what I mean unless I was in the bronx or in the park. You know, as a kid, I couldn't learn.

You know.

For me, a lot of people say, well, you're not getting no money for it, you know, And this is how I see it, Guys. People happily celebrate the birthday. Correct, I'm gonna give a damn about that. When God takes me my death day, what am I gonna leave for the babies to take it to the next level. My death day is more important than my birthday. And my birthday is on the most famous day of the year, which is January first. Wow, you know what I'm saying.

So before I'm out of here, I gotta make sure that the producer.

And the DJ is respected because if you think about this, if I was the engine and the producers were a fuel the cannon be it's made very very easy for the rapper to sit in it and blast off, and that needs to be talked about where this thing came from, how did it come about?

We need to talk about this.

And this is a black art form and and I'm hoping that this isn't another form like jazz. I go through one thing and all of a sudden it goes left. As long as I'm living that that ain't gonna happen here. And I thank you guys for allowing me to be here.

Man, I do got one more question.

Karras once said that he refused to be a part of the Grammy's Fifty Years of Hip Hop Special because it took so long for the Grammys they acknowledge hip hop.

What do you think about that? And did you get the call?

I got the call? Yeah, I got the call quite a few times. I know, Harvey Mason Jr.

You know, personally, I respect a man's point of view if that's their point of view, you know.

But I think for me, I need to be on as many.

Big media to situations that's possible because I'm really like the last of my kind that's speaking, and after me, there's probably no one.

So I thank you guys here, thank you, I thank you for answering.

My d M absolutely come on and we here and it's always a pleasure man, always a pleasure master. Gentlemen, thank you, and I'll we do these lectures, these corporate lectures, birth of a coach of lectures. Look for me and I'm gonna do two free ones, one of the Bronx and one of Manhattan, probably during Black History Months in February.

Okay, grand Master Flash, grand Master Flash, ladies and gentlemen, make sure you're following them on on Instagram, all socials.

At DJ Flash Forever, on all socials at DJ Flash Forever.

And you just turn around. I just want to read the back of your hoodie man.

Yeah, because the HOODIEES monumental says, the first DJ to make the turntable an instrument, first DJ to have a rapper, first DJ to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, first DJ to be on s Rex SAM, first DJ to get a Grammy, first DJ to get a Polar Prize, Grandmaster in the.

First DJ to give a history lesson about DJ and on the Breakfast Club.

That's right, Grandmaster Flash, ladies and gentlemen, it's the Breakfast Club.

Good Morning waits up in the morning.

The Breakfast Club