One of dance music’s pioneers and hip-hop legend, Grandmaster Flash has been a huge influence since the early years of dance music.
He’s seen the cutting, scratching and mixing works of music from days it first began to take shape. His contribution to music has been immense and now, he’s one of the few artists who’ve won the “Nobel Prize for Music”, the Polar Music Prize.
Grandmaster Flash is the first ever DJ to win the award. Other recipients of this award have been Metallica, BB King, Led Zeppelin and Paul McCartney.
On receiving the award from the King Of Sweden, Flash dedicated it “”in honour of every DJ, every rapper, every graffiti artist, and every breakdancer”.
“This thing that I did had not existed before, and I am one of many where I come from.”, he said. “It ended up being called hip-hop, taking the drum break from pop, rock, jazz, blues, funk, disco, R+B, and using duplicate copies of records. I would take one section and repeat it over and over again.”, he further added.
Take a bow, legend!
