Customer Reviews

The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats

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It's a good book.

At times when I read this book it made me realize that it really isn't 100% about hip hop, but about a man's struggle. How everyone's life can go zig zag zig... forward, back and hopefully forward again.

It shed light on a few things for me: Like why Flash has such an articulate vernacular (read, nerdy sounding speech), whether all the rumors of him hitting rock bottom were true or not, & how he had an almost obsession w/ bettering Kool Herc, the originator of the Hip Hop style of dj-ing.

The book is made up of very concise chapters that are quick and easy to read. There are a couple of things that I liked about the writing style too. There is an ongoing theme of how Flash relates everything to two records spinning, from the wheels on his bike to watching clothes spin in a laundromat when he is flat out busted and broke. Also at times the end of one chapter would purposely blend into the next chapter. Pretty much like Flash quick mixing at a set. And from a visual perspective, sometimes when there is an ascension or de-escalation of ideas or thoughts in a paragraph, the placement of letters in this paragraph were made to mimic this theme to form a set of steps or the like.
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In narrating his story Flash does skip or neglect to elaborate certain points quite often. I would have wanted to know a lil more of his dealings with Enjoy Records, how much he got from that "Flash Former" gadget, how successful he was after he split with Furious and then recorded w/ Electra, how he felt when he eventually went up against Kool Herc, etc., etc. etc.

I dunno, maybe this just didn't fit into the way the book was set up. Maybe it would have killed that rise-fall-rise human drama theme that the overall book is exhibiting. I dunno. Maybe the authors thought that the average Joe w/ no knowledge of the Boogie Down Bronx wouldn't care or know better anyway?

And yes there isn't really a significant amount of info about the early beginnings of hip hop. Perhaps the thinking is why retread that which can be found over and over again. The book "Yes, Yes, Yall" speaks encyclopedic volumes to that and is suitable for the layman and b-boy alike.

The good thing here is that we get the opportunity to learn about Flash's early early life. He candidly speaks on things I never heard mentioned in previous interviews w/ him, like his parents, sisters and schooling. Not to mention how, although a self admitted nerd, he spins thru females like they are records, sometimes quick cutting, sometimes back spinning, sometimes just riding the groove out. All these things go on to shape him later in life.

We learn about the young dj Flash before he was the Grand Master and how he always had to deal w/ the weight of being really skilled, but chained to a rag tag homemade sound system. One that the literal as well as musical "giant" of the time, Herc, would laugh at.
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I too give Flash dap for admitting that he was flat out afraid of Sylvia Robinson, Queen of Sugar Hill Records. Flat out afraid of losing his crew, having the haunting feeling that he as a dj, and not the now all important mc, would be relegated to the back of the bus.

You feel for Flash when he comes to the realization that his place as a non-rhyming dj, at Sugar Hill Records, Sugar Hill Studios & the Sugar Hill mansion is no place. You feel for him when his very first mc, Cowboy, spits at him "It ain't about you no more Flash". And when childhood friend EZ Mike takes his place in a reinvented lineup, who can't help but see the correlation of Brutus thrusting the final dagger into the chest of Grand Master Caesar.
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Like I mentioned earlier there may have been issues with editing & also trying to cram things into such a concise format. I can see a couple of errors w/ records not correlating with dates. And on the technical side, in one passage he mentions a device he made for himself to aid in mixing records, the peek-a-boo system, as if he had mentioned it earlier in the book when he had not. There are also slight grammatical & spelling errors here & there.

Also, Flash goes a hell of a long way to mention how he developed his mixing technique. He deals at length w/ that and I can only think someone who has never gotten behind 1200's or a pair of Thorens :) might be lulled to sleep by it. But of course this is exactly what defined a "kid named Flash"!

Also I see a lot of books and movies that use devices or techniques to make the style, flow or storyline of the book more cohesive. You yourself can sometimes right off the bat tell hat it has been made up, sometimes not. (Take for instance in the Movie "Malcolm X", The guy that teaches Malcolm the knowledge of self while he is incarcerated. That character was made by Spike Lee to tell the story more smoothly and didn't actually exist in the book or reality.)

Flash relates of a friend who helped him see the light, helped him get on track when he needed it, helped him sort the b.s. out when it was tuff. I really hope that this wasn't just a contrived literary device and someone that was really on the real. Because that is someone or something that we all need in our lives now and then :)
True dat.

At times when I read this book it made me realize that it really isn't 100% about hip hop, but about a man's struggle. How everyone's life can go zig zag zig... forward, back and hopefully forward again.

It's a good book.

Over the last five years or so, as hip hop culture has moved into its third decade, there have been more and more books published about its early days. Books like Yes Yes Y'All and Can't Stop Won't Stop have sought to trace the development of b-boying, DJing, MCing, and graffiti from their disparate origins in the early 1970s into the unified "street" culture and big business hip hop has become. This autobiography by one hip hop's pioneers traces the early years of this evolution through the personal story of someone who was there from the start.

In many respects, Flash's story (at least as he presents it), is a classic American rise and fall story. We meet him as a child with an abusive father with a killer record collection, who ditches the family and a mentally ill mother. Then through a succession of foster homes, the calm of The Greer School in upstate New York, and then back to the Bronx and Gompers VoTech High School. During these teen years, the slightly nerdy kid with a love of music and electronics manages to marry the two and more or less invent turntablism. Through hard work, innovative techniques, and the help of friends, he rises to local fame as a street and then club DJ. Then the perfidious Sugar Hill Records scoops him up, uses him up, and dumps him. Oh yeah, along the way he succumbs to the classic "rock star" pitfalls of not keeping his business affairs in good order, getting wrapped up in partying, women, and drugs. By the mid '80s, he's become an out of control cokehead who is rescued from ODing in a crack house by his older sister. Years pass as he lives on his sister's couch, with no income, struggling to put his life back together. Eventually, he finds some manner of spiritual peace, find closure with his father, and rebuilds his music career and rescues his reputation.

In many ways, Flash's story is predictably sad: the broken home, the signing of a record contract without understanding it, the allure of cash and flashy cars, the betrayal by friends, the coke, the dog-like behavior with women (he has children by five different women). And yet, there's a lot to like: from his confession that he tried b-boying and tried graffiti and failed at both before hitting on DJing as his ticket into hip-hop, his scavenging dumps for parts to build his own sound system, the combination of trial and error and inspiration it took to figure out how to cut beats and breaks and mix on the fly, the hours spent digging through record crates looking for obscure material, how "Big Bank Hank" stole the rhymes for "Rapper's Delight" from a friend, how Flash had nothing to do with the hits "The Message" or "White Lines," the crooked dealings of Sugar Hill Records (not to mention their silent mob-connected financier).

The book is probably at its most engaging, however, when describing the early days of hip-hop in the Bronx. The days of sound systems in parks and playgrounds, with street gangs in charge, and everybody out to have a good time. Flash's memories bring that all to life quite effectively and colorfully (as do many of the interviews in Yes, Yes, Y'all). One quibble I have with his account about these early days, is a failure to explain how what was happening on the street of the Bronx in the early '70s was replicating what had gone down in Jamaica ten years earlier. DJ Kool Herc, who figures prominently in Flash's account of the early years, lived in Jamaica until 1967, and the scene was exactly the same: competing street sound systems, with competing DJs who would take the labels off records so spies couldn't find out what they were playing, gangs, violence--all the same. Even MCing was preceded in Jamaica by "toasters" like King Stitt, U-Roy, Alcapone, and others, who would do rhymes over backing rhythm tracks. The line from '60s Jamaica to '70s Bronx is a pretty clear one, and it's a shame that Flash either never realized it, or chose not to mention it. (I've heard that a decent account of that Jamaican ancestry can be found in the early chapters Can't Stop, Won't Stop, although I haven't read it myself).

In the end, Flash's life is a quick read broken down into lots of bite-sized chapters. The writing isn't the best, and some of the stylistic tics are kind of clunky and cheesy, but it's definitely worth checking out if you're interested in the history of hip-hop, and turntablism in particular. Possibly worth checking out if you're interested in how urban subcultures rise and thrive.

I too bought the book when it came out, and finished it in three days.
I consider Grandmaster Flash to be the best DJ ever. I was a bit taken by some of the incorrect text, Flash writes about one night in 1975 when Pete Jones was spinning "I will survive" and "Lets Start the Dance" - both songs were released in 1978!. Also, too much on the Sylvia Robinson scenarioes, and absolutely nothing on the Elektra years, thats the reason I bought the book, as some of his finest work was during that period.
We all know the Sugar Hill story from other books. I wish I could be kinder, but as a b-boy and a music historian, I was left with a void.

Grand Master Flash laid a foundation for Hip-Hop DJ's today. Of course there was Kool Herc and others, but Flash took it to the next level by putting rappers and breakers on the map. I always said a rapper is nothing without a good DJ and in his autobiography Flash actually educates inspiring DJ's unwillingly not just on how to spin records but he tells you what sounds good and what doesn't and how to keep the crowds moving. While I was popping my fingers with nostalgia, I was also filled with emotions from his troubled life. I was glad to be invited into his life and truly understand what DJ's experience both personally and while on the set. I wish him the best on his new path. And while I appreciate how much Hip-Hop has grown today, I respect Flash's mark on its history, in a "grand masterful" way.

This book is killer and yes there is some missing data but who cares. What makes me sad is the simple fact that it is NOT gracing the chains of Americas Books stores.
The clueless idiots wouldn't be able to grasp how profound a character GM Flash is. Sadly they need more shelf space for another yet to be published WHO KILLED TUPAC Book

Freddy Fresh
Author of Freddy Fresh Presents The Rap Records and DJ/Artist
Producer of several GM Flash Tracks for Marlborough Music
[...]

The Adventures of G.M. Flash is a very quick and easy read. I grew up a huge fan of Flash, but anyone interested in reading a firsthand account of a culture that he helped create and see it evolve, then you must read this book. His personal story is full of more tragedy than triumph so it is remarkable that he survived everything to become a living icon.

I just finished reading Flash's book. Let me start off by saying Flash has always been one of my heros, not just in Hip-hop -- but in a life. Out of all the Hip-Hop figures I would read about I felt like I had something in common with him. I grew up a nerdy kid who dabbled with computers and Radio Shack electronics sets. I remember fixing my portable tape player at the age of 4 or 5, because my dad wasn't home to open it up and place the belt back on the motor. Moreover, I was drawn into Hip-Hop because it was electronic -- because my Commodore 64 and records interested me as a child far more than the guitar, drum, or trumpet lessons I took did. The first time I heard Flash's "Adventures on the Wheels of Steel" as a DJ, I wanted to track down every record used in that set and recreate it; I took the records I already owned and tried to create answer records of some sort. The days, months, and years I spent in my bedroom dragging pieces of vinyl back and forth, fantasizing over turntables were made possible because of Flash.

Flash had the guts to try something new and abstract and put it out for the world to see. There was no worry of conventions. He took a risk that evolved an entire culture, music, and industry.

But back to the book, Flash goes in depth about his upbringing: his parents, his mentally ill mother, his sisters, and most importantly -- his father's record collection. He talks about digging through heaps of garbage to find wire so he could built a makeshift tube amplifier; salvaging speakers from stripped cars in South Bronx lots; perfecting cutting in a grungy basement. You get a feel for the grunge that gave birth to what Hip-Hop would come to be.

Flash details his experience with DJ Pete Jones, who encouraged him to keep doing his thing -- and even helped him get paying gigs downtown.

When you read Flash's story of Sylvia Robinson and Sugar Hill, you'll never listen to records like "The Message," "White LInes," or "New York, New York" the same again. And you'll also understand why many old school pioneers have a right to be bitter.

What's missing? Flash doesn't speak much about his post Sugar Hill endeavors on Elektra, that produced some noteworthy tunes in my opinion ("They Say It Couldn't Be Done" with "Larry's Dance Theme" for example), nor does it talk about some of his early production efforts (like the "Lyrics 2 to the Rythm" track featured on the "New Jack City" soundtrack). I'm also left a bit puzzled: who really invented 'scratching' Theodore or Flash?

I was glued to the book, then again he's one of my heros. I finished the 250 page read in less than a day.