Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five have been nominated for the Rock N Roll hall of fame along with the O’Jays, Kraftwerk, and others. Yeah kiddies – they fell off when Run DMC hit but they could have had their run through like 87 – 88 and further. There’s probably a million excuses/reasons/lawsuits/demons why they didn’t dominate as long as they could have but Melle Mel (1987 New Music Seminar MC Battle winner), Kid Creole, Scorpio, Raheim, and Cowboy RIP were all (and still are) vicious, talented, and always current MCs. What if they got down with Ced Gee or Mantronix or Rick Rubin or actually tried to stay competitive with Rakim or Kane or KRS over early James Brown sampling or made music over beats that MC Shan or Just Ice had? What if some record label jerk thought it would be a good idea to have Prince Paul do a Furious Five album in 1990? Does anyone remember the Hot 97 Mic Check Show on Sundays in 1994?. For an hour every week they would freestyle and have famous MCs come up and no matter who showed up, they never got outrhymed or outshined. The Furious Five could have had their run in every era of hip hop. Congratulations and all, but will the public ever really appreciate the Furious Five?



  1. oldschool einstein (Reply) on Mar 8, 2008

    No… the public won’t ever really appreciate the Furious 5. Know why? The public is very, very dumb and care about very, very little.

  2. dj shakey (Reply) on Dec 19, 2008

    the mic check show was my favorite! Furious Five would host, local emcees would call in and rap over the phone to beats by the dj and the FF would rate them, if they were good they’d chant “ya did ya thing baby, ya did ya thing”, if you were getting off beat they would say “check ya timin’, check ya rhyme”, and if you cursed they would go “that was doodoo!” and pull the plug on ya. so funny! please someone tell me there are recordings of this show somewhere!?! i have some but have no idea where i put them…someday i’ll find them…

  3. CV (Reply) on Dec 19, 2008

    dj shaky,

    i used to listen to that show every sunday night, unfortunately i dont have any old tapes. i remember the furious five were holding their own with pretty much everyone that came through. if you can find any old tapes, let us know.