闪耀大师

Joseph Robert Saddler (born January 1, 1958), known by his stage name Grandmaster Flash, is an American DJ. He is the creator of a DJ technique called the Quick Mix Theory, which elongates a song's drum breaks through the use of switching and looping duplicate vinyl copies. This technique gave rappers and breakdancers an elongated bed of beats to speak over or dance to, respectively, and gave birth to record cutting and scratching. He also invented the slipmat, used on a turntable platter rather than the traditional rubber mat for easier record manipulation.

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 honoured with the Polar Music Prize. On May 21, 2022, he acquired an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from Buffalo State University. On June 1, 2023, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in music from Lehman College in the Bronx, NY. On August 4, 2023, Saddler was issued a proclamation from the city of New York stating that August 4 is Grandmaster Flash Day.

Early life, family, and education

Saddler was born and raised in the Bronx, New York City. His father, Joseph Saddler Sr., was a track worker for the New York City Transit and his mother, Regina Saddler, was a stay-at-home seamstress.

He attended Samuel Gompers High School, a public vocational school. There, he learned how to repair electronic equipment. Saddler's parents played an important role in his interest in music. His father was a fan of Caribbean and African American recordings.

During his childhood, Saddler was fascinated by his father's record collection. In an interview, he reflected: "My father was a very heavy record collector.... I used to open his closets and just watch all the records he had. I used to get into trouble for touching his records, but I'd go right back and bother them." Saddler's early interest in DJing came from this fascination with his father's record collection as well as his mother's desire for him to educate himself in electronics. After high school, he became involved in the earliest New York DJ scene, attending parties set up by early luminaries like DJ Kool Herc and Disco King Mario.

Saddler's uncle Sandy Saddler was a featherweight boxing champion.

Innovations

When observing the differences between the smooth transitions of a disco DJ and the poorly-beat-matched transitions of early DJing, Grandmaster Flash took inspiration from the former to form a fingertip-to-vinyl and crossfader technique called the Quick Mix Theory. This technique was a mathematical way to cut, paste, repeat, and extend a very minuscule piece of an existing composition. This innovation took place in two places in the Bronx. The first location was his parents' house, 2730 Dewey Ave in the Throggs Neck Projects of the Bronx. The completion of the Quick Mix Theory was done at 927 Fox Street in the Hunts Point Area of the Bronx.

The Quick Mix Theory gave birth to techniques such as cutting, scratching, and transforming.