Grandmaster Flash Set for Galway

First published on Studenty.me on 7 Jan 2012.




Hip-hop legend, Grandmaster Flash is set to play a gig in the Roisin Dubh on Saturday 28 January, which just so happens to be the birthday of yours truly!

DJ Grandmaster Flash and his group, the Furious Five, have been areound since the 70s, and are recognised in the music business as hip-hop's greatest innovators.

image: google images

Grandmaster Flash is probably one of the best-known and most iconic names in hip-hop. Along with the Furious Five, he helped develop the genre. In 2007, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five became the first hip-hop act to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five are hip-hop personified, and contribute to the definition of what the genre is. Without Grandmaster Flash, there would be no hip-hop.

The group's most significant hit was The Message in 1982, featuring the well-known story of inner city violence and poverty. Grandmaster Flash, though credited on the records doesn't appear on The Message, Freedom or many other songs by the Furious Five. He provided the central element of the Furious Five's sound, and gave the group its name, but there wasn't much room for turntablism in the early singles.

Grandmaster Flash now owns his own clothing line, "G.Phyre", has released a memoir The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats, hosts weekly shows on Surius Satelite Radio, and even appears in the very populat videa game "DJ Hero".

A DJ Hero, he certainly is. Hip-hop is one an extremely popular music genre today, so next time we're busting our moves to the latest beats, let's remember that hip-hop would not exist without Grandmaster Flash.

To see Grandmaster Flash in the Grandmaster Flesh, come on down to the Roisin Dubh on Saturday 28 January. Doors open 9pm, tickets cost €18/€16.

7 Jan 2012

by Jessica Thompson