New Music from a DJ Icon: Grandmaster Flash!

If, like me, you believe firmly in the science of evolution, you believe that we all have one common ancestor. No matter how diverse we are today, we carry a little bit of DNA that links us to the beginning.

Likewise, no matter how different my fellow DJs and I are, we are rooted in a common beginning — Grandmaster Flash.

There is no controversy regarding Flash's influence on every other DJ. He was the first performer to begin record scratching. Early on, he described the scratch as the sound that DJs hear in their headphones when they cue up records. Every DJ heard it, but Flash was the one who turned it into an art form. That was in 1981.

Since then, he's done nothing less than shape the very nature of Hip Hop. Early collaborators included Kid Creole, Kurtis Blow and "Cowboy" Keith Wiggins, the man who first coined the term "Hip Hop." For a lifetime of innovative music, Flash was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007 by Jay-Z (not Jim Zumwalt, as has been widely rumored).

Although it has been 30 years since his first release, Grandmaster Flash is still at it with a new release, The Bridge — Concept of a Culture. Although it is Flash's first album since 1988, The Bridge is no swan song. It has all the raw power you'd expect from the Godfather of Hip Hop and features such luminaries as Snoop Dogg, Q-Tip, Busta Rhymes and MC Supernatural.

It's not very often that you get to hear new music from an icon. If you do, it's usually something that is substantially less daring than the music that made the artist.

This is not the case with The Bridge. Every track is tight. It's almost as if we found some long-lost Grandmaster Flash recording.

Just as most DJs carry some Grandmaster Flash from the '70s and '80s in their crate, future DJs will undoubtedly carry tracks from The Bridge. That's just the way it is — Grandmaster Flash is just as much a part of DJing as cuts, scratches, crossfades and shameless groupies. Yeah, right.

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