Was reading through the most recent Wired magazine and came across this short excerpt about Grandmaster Flash inventing turntabilism. Although I don’t think that’s the correct term for what he pioneered, I’m always down for classic hip-hop getting press. Link
Turntabilism, 1973
Grandmaster Flash
Hip-Hop Pioneer
Community room of Kool Herc’s building, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, New York City
The DJs at the time were picking up the arm and dropping it down exactly on the break of the song. But I was dancing, and I noticed everybody’s head was bobbing at the same time, and then suddenly everyone’s heads would go into disarray, and then come back together again. I found this to be very strange. From that moment, I decided to come up with a science that would allow me to have full control to manually edit the beat. I came up with the science called the Quick Mix theory. It consisted of me having to do something that DJs at the time never did: placing my fingertips on the vinyl. I was ridiculed for a long time. I was told that I ruined needles, ruined styluses, ruined records, and also that placing my fingers on the vinyl was something DJs never did because I’d make the record filthy. But I knew that I had to do it to have full control over the vinyl.