He's credited with creating hip hop, and consequently turntablism. But Grand Master Flash- with a recent Essential series mixed CD that salutes the sounds that influenced him, as well as a slew of production projects under his belt- insists that he's not a legend. Rather, when Klublife called on Joseph Sadler at his New York home, he insisted that the master plan of further influencing music is alive and well.

Grand Master Flash

Klublife: What has Grand Master Flash been up to for the last twenty years?

GMF: What have I been doing, for the last twenty years-being a DJ, entertainer, music director, and a father.

KL: When you first started mixing, did you ever expect it to spawn something like hip hop, or how popular it would become?

GMF: The phrase "hip hop" was coined by Kool Herc. But never in my wildest dreams did I think that it would become a planetary entertainment situation.

KL: Does being heavily credited with the creation of hip hop ever seem overwhelming?

GMF: I don't think about it much. I'm so into what can I do next. I don't purposely just dwell on that platform: 'oh well I created this or that'.  I don't want to think that way.  I'm busy into what can I do today, or what can I do for tomorrow. The one thing that I like, I base my whole being on, there is one thing in life that is inevitable and that's defiantly change.  I don't want to be a myth, or folklore, or a rumor. I'm still here.  I play new music, and I play the old music I am more renowned for. That's basically it.  What can I do next? That is where I'm at.

KL: What are your feelings towards the rise of 'gangsta' and 'bling-bling' hip hop, in regards to how hip hop used to have a positive message?

GMF: When it first started it didn't carry a positive message either.  What it carried was having fun.  Talking about getting girls and talking shit, DJ's: who can cut the fastest, and MC's: who can rhyme the fastest.  It wasn't trying to be negative or positive. As far as today, from a music stand point, it is a collage of many musics, it has a rock feel, a hip hop feel, and a pop feel.  Hip hop from a lyrical standpoint it is unlimited from what we can talk about.  But it all comes down to entertainment. 

Today rapper's are on things, from a lyrical standpoint I call it people, places and things. Right now hip hop is on things, ice, money, objects, but it has been here before, and it willmove onto something else.  I don't see it as negative. Something that is loved by so many, it could be considered controversial, but at the end of it not more controversial than rock in it's early beginnings or jazz.