How well do you know Grandmaster Flash?

Grandmaster Flash: Innovator of DJing and Founder of the Furious Five

• Grandmaster Flash is an American DJ and producer who created a DJ technique called the Quick Mix Theory, which gave birth to cutting, scratching, and transforming.
• He is the founder and creator of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, the first rap group to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
• In 2019 he became the first hip hop artist to be honored with the Polar Music Prize. On May 21, 2022, he acquired an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from Buffalo State College.
• Saddler's family immigrated to the United States from Barbados. He was raised in the Bronx, New York City, where he attended Samuel Gompers High School, a public vocational school.
• Grandmaster Flash observed the styles of the smooth transitions of a disco DJ versus the non-fluid non-BPM-matched transitions of early DJing. He chose to complete his studies with the former.
• Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five pioneered MCing and freestyle battles. Some of the staple phrases in MCing have their origins in the early shows and recordings of the group.
• In 1980, they signed to Sugar Hill Records and began touring and releasing numerous singles. The seminal "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel", released in 1981, is a 7-minute solo showcase of Grandmaster Flash's virtuosic turntable skills, combining elements of Blondie's "Rapture", Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band's "Apache", Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust", Chic's "Good Times", and the group's own "Freedom".
• The group's most significant hit was the electro rap song "The Message" (1982), which was produced by in-house Sugar Hill producer Clifton "Jiggs" Chase and featured session musician Duke Bootee.
• Grandmaster Flash does not actually appear on "The Message", "Freedom", or many of the other Furious Five songs.
• In 2008 he released a memoir, The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats, in which he talks about the origins of his fascination with scratching records and creating new beats.
• Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were the first hip-hop/rap group inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on March 12, 2007 by Jay-Z.
• Grandmaster Flash appears in the video game DJ Hero as a playable character along with original mixes created for the game.
• In 2023, Grandmaster Flash competed in season nine of The Masked Singer as "Polar Bear".