Monday, November 2, 2009

Old School Mondays:: Grandmaster Flash Edition

Unless you're like the Ack, and you boycott any video game that requires you to do anything more complicated than repeatedly mashing one button, you've likely heard of DJ Hero. DJ Hero is exactly what you'd think: a DJ-based take on the Guitar Hero or Rock Band music simulation games that have blown up in the last few years. It looks pretty cool, and I certainly want to try it, but one of the more impressive aspects of the game is the song list.

The makers of the game assembled a track list for the game that features nearly 100 mash-ups of pretty well-known songs, many done by DJ luminaries like Z-Trip, DJ Shadow, the late DJ AM, Jazzy Jeff and the immortal Grandmaster Flash, who also narrates the instructional portions of the game. Flash is an interesting character, he's kind of like hip hop's favorite wacky uncle, except this uncle also just happened to pioneer a DJ-ing technique that became requisite part of the music & culture. I don't know about you, but when I think of Flash, I inevitably think of one thing: The Message. Sublime in every way, the original conscious rap song doesn't actually feature Flash doing his cutting & mixing thing, but it is pure, uncut awesome, and I realized I'd never posted it before, and so the main point of this post is to right that wrong.

But I figured it made sense to post something that also shows flash doing his thing, and there's no better example of that then The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel, which is like five minutes of Flash doing his live "quick-mix" thing. And so you're getting that one too. But once I started listening to these old songs, I couldn't stop, and there's a couple more for you. The Genius Of Love-sampling It's Nasty has always been a favorite of mine, so it's here too. You can't really talk about Flash and the Five without mentioning their first single Superappin', and we've got that one too. To finish, we've got a boombox favorite, New York, New York, which has a classic chorus and much more guitar shredding than I remember.

I say this all the time, but it's really true this time: these are some classic songs. If you aren't familiar with Flash or The Furious Five, school yourself, if you are, just let the memories flow.

MP3:: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - The Message

MP3:: Grandmaster Flash - The Aventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels of Steel

MP3:: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - It's Nasty

MP3:: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - Superappin'

MP3:: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - New York New York