Don't Stop the Beat

It all started in the Bronx, N.Y., in the late 1960s. The soon-to-be pioneer of hip-hop, Joseph Saddler, would wait until his father left for work, then sneak into the living room to play his records. He'd sit, and listen, and stare—mesmerized by how the music played. Later, he'd turn that obsession into DJ legend, scratching and spinning the turntables to create new beats, which he'd test out at the Bronx block parties from which hip-hop would emerge. He later teamed up with five MCs to form Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, landing a record deal with Sugar Hill and releasing one of the first crossover rap tracks in history, the socially conscious 1982 hit "The Message." In 2007, the group was the first hip-hop act to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

But Flash's success didn't come easy, and his new memoir, "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats," makes that very clear. From cocaine addiction and an abusive father to his volatile relationship with his record label, Flash, now 50, writes candidly about the struggles he endured to achieve success, and what came after it. He spoke with NEWSWEEK's Jessica Bennett about the book, his life and what he thinks of hip-hop today. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Describe your childhood obsession with records. How far did it go?
Grandmaster Flash: Whenever dad would go off to work, I'd wait for the door to slam and I'd grab a record and turn on the stereo. Eventually, my dad would scratch his head and be like, "Have any of you been going through my records?" He'd ask everyone, and by the time he got to me, I was so terrified you'd think the word "yes" was written on my forehead. I'd get my brains beat out of me, sometimes until I was unconscious. Then he'd put my hands on the radiator and burn them, in hopes that it would keep me out of the closet. But it only peaked my interest more.

Was it that you loved the music or you wanted to know how it worked?
The plastic grooves of the records to me were like tunnels. I wanted to know, "How is there music inside these little tunnels?" When I became a teenager, I started taking apart all the electronic equipment I could find. I became public enemy No. 1 in my house, because everything that made noise—from a stereo to a hairdryer to the washing machine—I'd take apart, trying to figure out how it worked. When I didn't have equipment, I'd go into people's back yards and take their junk—old stereo equipment, car parts—and bring them back into my room to take it apart. I was in search of something.

And eventually you ended up at a technical high school.
Yes. After a while, my mother said, "You have to stop doing this—your sisters are angry at you, they want to blow-dry their hair and [the dryer] won't turn on." Once I was there, I started to understand what made these things work.

How'd you develop your method for mixing records?
I started learning why things do what they do, and I came up with a science I called "quick mix theory." I learned you could actually do things with the vinyl—touch it—which was unheard of for the time. I just decided one day that I would put my four fingers on the record. And when I held it, and moved it in a backward and forward motion, it was like "Ohhh."