Joseph Saddler (born January 1, 1958 in Bridgetown, Barbados), better known as Grandmaster Flash, is an American hip hop musician and DJ. He is recognized as one of the pioneers in the techniques of puncturing and mixing typical of hip hop.
Grandmaster Flas and the Furious Five entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, becoming the first hip hop group to which this honor was awarded
Biography
Joseph Saddler's family emigrated to the United States from Barbados, in the Caribbean, and grew up in the Bronx, New York. He went to Samuel Gompers High School, a public vocational school, where he learned to repair electronic equipment. Saddler's parents played an important role in his interest in music. His father was a big fan of American black music and Caribbean sounds. When he was a child, Saddler was fascinated by his father's record collection. Saddler's early interest in being a DJ will surely come from this fascination for his father's collecting, as well as his mother's desire to educate him on something related to electronics. After high school, he entered the first scene of DJs in New York, going to the parties organized by the pioneers of this movement.
He is also the nephew of world featherweight champion Sandy Saddler.3
Joseph Saddler lives in the Morrisania area of the South Bronx.
Innovations
Grandmaster Flash carefully studied the techniques and styles they used to prick their predecessors, particularly Pete Jones, Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flowers.4 As a teenager, he began experimenting with DJ equipment in his bedroom, developing three innovations that since then They are considered as standard techniques of every DJ.
Backspin ("Quick-Mix Theory"): at the first parties in New York, DJs realized that the short drum breaks were very celebrated among the audience. With the intention of isolating those breaks and extending their duration, Grandmaster Flash discovered that using two copies of the same disc he could play the break in a turntable, while searching for the same piece of music on the other (using headphones) and spinning the vinyl with hand. When the break ended in one of the plates, he used the mixer to quickly move to the other turntable where the same break was kept ready to sound from the beginning. Using the backspin technique, the same short piece of music could be repeated indefinitely.
Punch Phrasing ("Clock Theory"): this technique had to do with isolating very short segments of music, usually windy notes or a scream, to throw it rhythmically on a constant beat, using the mixer.
Scratching: Although the invention of scratching is usually attributed to Grand Wizard Theodore, Grandmaster Flash perfected the technique and took it to new audiences. Scratching, along with punch phrasing, allowed the DJ to be shown in a novel way: instead of simply putting a sequence of records, he actively manipulated them to create new music.
