Grandmaster Flash charted with “The Message”

The Message Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five

Writer(s): Sylvia Robinson/Ed Fletcher/Melvin Glover/Nathaniel Chase (see lyrics here) Released: July 1, 1982 First Charted: July 24, 1982 Peak: 62 US, 94 CB, 4 RB, 21 AU, 8 UK, 10 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 0.5 US Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 39.52 video, 57.05 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: “Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was a pivotal group in the early days of rap, developing crucial aspects of the genre.” NRR Flash is “largely credited with the popularization of scratching” FR in which DJs mixed songs together and MCs would improvise verses – or rap – over the top. TC The style grew out of block parties in the Bronx in the mid-1970s when DJs would set up sound systems and play records. TC “What had once been a party trick became the most significant cultural movement of the next three decades.” TC Flash was also known for drawing “on everything from…Kraftwerk and James Brown’s horn breaks.” LW Sugar Hill Records tapped him and his crew to bring their talents to the recording studio, resulting in “the first record made solely from mixing other records.” TC Ed “Duke Bootee” Fletcher, a schoolteacher RS500 and the house band percussionist, TC wrote a poem which Sugar Hill’s co-owner Sylvia Robinson decided to turn into a rap record. RS500 With Melle Mel providing the main rapping, “The Message” “detailed the hardships of life in the urban environment.” FR It was “a breakthrough in hip-hop, taking the music from party anthems to street-level ghetto blues.” RS500 That “focus on urban social issues” NRR mapped “a course followed by many later rap artists.” NRR “Without this song, the entire course of the genre could have been very different indeed, and some of its most prominent voices might never have surfaced.” TB Flash and the crew weren’t enamored with the political message TC and apparently Robinson only got them to agree to record it by promising it wouldn’t be a single. PW Of course, the song would be released and it became “an instant sensation on New York’s hip-hop radio.” RS500 As Flash said, “It played all day, every day. It put us on a whole new level.” RS500 Of course, its success went beyond lyrical content. “What’s obvious is how much the words were abetted by the music: melody sketched by synthesizer, pulse provided by fun bass and glowering drums, comment added by scratchy rhythm guitar.” DM It “was hardly the first rap record, but its sonic power…and the astonishing immediacy of its lyrics combined to make it the official announcement of the start of something truly new.” PW The song posed the concern, “Sometimes I wonder how I keep from goin’ under,” and critic Dave Marsh suggested, “Apparently dancing helps.” DM Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Grandmaster Flash TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Page 391. FR Paul Friedlander (1996). Rock and Roll: A Social History. Boulder, Colorado; Westview Press, Inc. Page 274. LW Alan Lewens (2001). Popular Song – Soundtrack of the Century. Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 152. DM Dave Marsh (1989). The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. New American Library: New York, NY. Page 61. NRR National Recording Registry RS500 Rolling Stone (12/04). “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 198. PW Paul Williams (1993). Rock and Roll: The Best 100 Singles. Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc.: New York, NY Pages 204-6. First posted 7/24/2012; last updated 6/18/2023.