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.I N T R O D U C T I O Nrecorded materials.Some characterized his eƒorts as innovativewhile others dismissed them as thievery and lacking creativity.As he began to figure out how to manipulate the technology—turntables, amplifiers, mixers, and speakers—he developed a newvocabulary to capture his creative genius.According to Flash, “That’s when I had to come up with terms like ‘the torque factor’—howI judge the turntable from the state of inertia to when it is up tospeed.” His close study of turntables revealed the subtle yet impor-tant distinctions between diƒerent types of needles and how theymight aƒect his eƒorts to create songs out of previously recorded ma-terials.He even coined the term clock theory to describe his decision to re-repeat particular sections of a record by spinning the disc back a few rotations to constantly play the break beat.What makes the accomplishments of Flash and his contempo-raries so impressive is how they imposed their creative will on whatwas, in reality, a hardscrabble landscape that provided few resources or opportunities for young people who lived on society’s margins.“Today,” Flash says, “you can buy turntables, needles and mixers that are equipped to do whatever.But at that particular time, I had tobuild it.I had to take microphone mixers and turn them into turn-table mixers.I was taking speakers out of abandoned cars and usingpeople’s thrown-away stereos.” How Flash and his contemporariesinvented the modern DJ through sheer hustle, imagination, and in-novation is not simply their story; it is, in a very real sense, the story of hip hop.Like many in hip hop’s first wave of innovators, Flash created a way out of no way and, in the process, transformed DJing intoa serious art form and a lucrative profession.Years later in an interview the man the music world now knows asGrandmaster Flash recalled turning down some of the earliest oƒersto do in a recording studio what he genuinely loved doing in areaparks and dance clubs around New York.Like many of the younghip-hop artists in the 1970s, Flash was making a name for himself but not much else.He found it hard to believe that anyone would payfour or five dollars for music they were getting basically for free in the28 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]