Grandmaster Flash (born Joseph Saddler on January 1, 1958 in Barbados) is a… Read Full Bio ↴Grandmaster Flash (born Joseph Saddler on January 1, 1958 in Barbados) is a hip hop musician and DJ; one of the pioneers of hip-hop DJing, cutting, and mixing.
Saddler's family migrated to the United States, and he grew up in the Bronx. He became involved in the earliest Queensbridge, New York DJ scene, attending parties set up by early luminaries. Learning from Pete Jones and Kool Herc, he used duplicate copies of a single record and two turntables but added a dextrous manual edit with a mixer to promote the break (a point of isolated drum rhythm) - the ordinary playing of the record would be interrupted to overlay the break, the break could be repeated by using the mixer to switch channels while the second record was spun back. The speed and dexterity needed showed why Saddler was called Flash, although he got the nickname in school due to the fact that he hung around with another guy named Gordon (from Flash Gordon). He also invented the technique initially called cutting, which was developed by Grand Wizard Theodore into scratching (AMG).
Flash played illegal parties and also worked with rappers such as Kurtis Blow and Lovebug Starski. He formed his own group in the late 1970s, after promptings from Ray Chandler. The initial members were Cowboy (Keith Wiggins), Melle Mel (Melvin Glover) and Kid(d) Creole (Nathaniel Glover) making Grandmaster Flash & the 3 MCs. Two other rappers briefly joined, but they were replaced more permanently by Rahiem (Guy Todd Williams, previously in the Funky Four) and Scorpio (Eddie Morris, also used the name Mr. Ness) to create Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five. Soon gaining recognition for their skillful raps, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five pioneered MCing, freestyle battles, and invented some of the staple phrases in MCing. They performed at Disco Fever in the Bronx beginning in 1978.
Signed to Sugar Hill Records in 1980 by Joe Robinson, they released numerous singles, gaining a gold disc for "Freedom," and also toured. The classic "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel," released in 1981 was the best display of their skills (combining elements of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust", Chic's "Good Times" and samples from Blondie's Rapture), but it was their least successful single at the time. The group's most significant hit was "The Message" (1982), which was produced by in-house Sugar Hill producer Clifton "Jiggs" Chase and went platinum in less than a month. Flash sued Sugar Hill in 1983 over the non-payment of royalties, and in 1984 the group split between Flash and Mel before disintegrating entirely. Flash, Kid Creole and Rahiem signed to Elektra Records while the others continued as "Grandmaster Melle Mel & the Furious Five." (Mel notably appeared on Chaka Khan's I Feel for You). They reformed in 1987 for a charity concert, to release one album and then fell apart again. There was another reunion, of a kind, in 1994, although Cowboy died in 1989 from a drug overdose due to the effects of his crack cocaine addiction.
Saddler's family migrated to the United States, and he grew up in the Bronx. He became involved in the earliest Queensbridge, New York DJ scene, attending parties set up by early luminaries. Learning from Pete Jones and Kool Herc, he used duplicate copies of a single record and two turntables but added a dextrous manual edit with a mixer to promote the break (a point of isolated drum rhythm) - the ordinary playing of the record would be interrupted to overlay the break, the break could be repeated by using the mixer to switch channels while the second record was spun back. The speed and dexterity needed showed why Saddler was called Flash, although he got the nickname in school due to the fact that he hung around with another guy named Gordon (from Flash Gordon). He also invented the technique initially called cutting, which was developed by Grand Wizard Theodore into scratching (AMG).
Flash played illegal parties and also worked with rappers such as Kurtis Blow and Lovebug Starski. He formed his own group in the late 1970s, after promptings from Ray Chandler. The initial members were Cowboy (Keith Wiggins), Melle Mel (Melvin Glover) and Kid(d) Creole (Nathaniel Glover) making Grandmaster Flash & the 3 MCs. Two other rappers briefly joined, but they were replaced more permanently by Rahiem (Guy Todd Williams, previously in the Funky Four) and Scorpio (Eddie Morris, also used the name Mr. Ness) to create Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five. Soon gaining recognition for their skillful raps, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five pioneered MCing, freestyle battles, and invented some of the staple phrases in MCing. They performed at Disco Fever in the Bronx beginning in 1978.
Signed to Sugar Hill Records in 1980 by Joe Robinson, they released numerous singles, gaining a gold disc for "Freedom," and also toured. The classic "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel," released in 1981 was the best display of their skills (combining elements of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust", Chic's "Good Times" and samples from Blondie's Rapture), but it was their least successful single at the time. The group's most significant hit was "The Message" (1982), which was produced by in-house Sugar Hill producer Clifton "Jiggs" Chase and went platinum in less than a month. Flash sued Sugar Hill in 1983 over the non-payment of royalties, and in 1984 the group split between Flash and Mel before disintegrating entirely. Flash, Kid Creole and Rahiem signed to Elektra Records while the others continued as "Grandmaster Melle Mel & the Furious Five." (Mel notably appeared on Chaka Khan's I Feel for You). They reformed in 1987 for a charity concert, to release one album and then fell apart again. There was another reunion, of a kind, in 1994, although Cowboy died in 1989 from a drug overdose due to the effects of his crack cocaine addiction.
Beat Street
Grandmaster Flash Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴
Beat Street Breakdown, Raah!
Hip Hop!
Beat Street
The king of the beat
You see him rocking that beat from across the street
And Huh Huh!
Beat Street is a lesson too, because you can't let the Streets beat you!
Well a picture can express a thousand words to describe all the beauty of life you give
And if the world was yours to do over, I know you'd paint a better place to live
Where the colours would swirl and the boys and girls can grow in peace and harmony
And where murals stand on walls so grand as far as the eyes are able to see, Ha!
I never knew art til I saw your face and there'll never be one to take your place
'Cause each and every time you touch the spray paint can
Michelangelo's soul controls your hand
Then serenades of blue and red and the beauty of the rainbow fills your head
Crescendo of colours hang in tune, Man why oh why d'ya have to die so soon?
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, where the good die young it's all thy must
'Cause as life must live, death must die and the tear shall fall from the living eye, Huh!
The teardrops fall for the state of mind of the beautiful lady that you left behind
In love and alone, but now you're dead, and she still can't get you out of her head, Huh!
More tears fall for all you've done, trying to be a good father to your only son
But now who's gonna make sure that he's fed, put a shirt on his back and a roof overhead?
Tell me who's gonna dream the impossible dream of the beautiful cities in the islands genes?
When your works of art brought into being all that the ghetto stopped you from seeing
Bums on the sidewalk, garbage in the streets, abandoned buildings, bricks of concrete
The ladies on the corner are selling their bodies, and everybody wants a part in that party
I'm hanging out tough, rocking late at night, running wild in the town of the neon light
You either play some ball or stand in the hall Huh!
You gotta make something outta nothing at all
I'm sitting in the classroom learning the rules and it says you can't do graffiti in school
They can't be wrong in the hallowed hall, so my notebook turned into a brick wall
The heart of a lion and the courage of three, and the mind of a man much wiser than me
You're the soul of the brother who won't come back
Who died in my arms on the railroad track
'Cause I'm caught in the rat race, looking for my own space
There's gotta be a better place for you and me
There's pie in the sky, and an eye for an eye
Some people gotta die just to be free
You search for justice and what do you find?
You find just us on the unemployment line
You find just us sweating from dawn to dusk
There's no justice, there's Huh, just us, Ha!
Still life urban masterpiece, your trademark was written on trains and walls
A million dollar gift only God released, and yet you got killed for nothing at all
So after this there'll be no more hard times, no more bad times and no more pain
No more chump change, none of that bull
Just movies, museums and the hall of fame
So all you Hip Hops get on up, and let's take it to the top where we belong
'Cause the age of the Beat Street wave is here
Everybody let's sing along, now c'mon, say 'Ho!' ('Ho!'), Say 'Ho!' ('Ho!')
And to let me know I'm rocking the microphone everybody say 'Ramo!' ('Ramo!')
'Ramo!' ('Ramo!')
Raah!
A newspaper burns in the sand, and the headlines say 'Man destroys Man!'
Extra! Extra! Read all the bad news on the war for peace that everybody would lose
The rise and fall, the last great empire, the sound of the whole world caught on fire
The ruthless struggle, the desperate gamble
The game that left the whole world in shambles
The cheats, the lies, the alibis
And the foolish attempt to conquer the skies
Lost in space, and what is it worth, huh?
The president just forgot about Earth
Spending multi billions, and maybe even trillions
The cost of weapons ran into zillions
There's gold in the street, and diamonds under feet
And the children in Africa don't even eat
Flies on their faces, they're living like mice
And the houses even make the ghetto look nice, Huh!
The water tastes funny, it's forever too sunny
And they work all month and don't make no money
A fight for power, a nuclear shower
And people shout out in the darkest hour
Of sights unseen and voices unheard
And finally the bomb gets the last word
Christians killed Muslims, and Germans killed Jews
And everybody's bodies are used and abused, Huh!
Minds are poisoned and souls are polluted
Superiority complex is deep rooted
Leeches and lice's, and people got prices
Egomaniacs control the self-righteous
Nothing is sacred and nothing is pure
So the revelation of death is our cure
Hitler and Caesar, Custer and Reagan
Napoleon, Castro, Mussolini and Begin
Ghengis Khan and the Shah of Iran
Mixed with the blood of the weaker man
The peoples in terror, the leaders made the error
And now they can't even look in the mirror
'Cause we gotta suffer while things get rougher
And that's the reason why we got to get tougher
To learn from the past and work for the future
And don't be a slave to no computer
'Cause the Children of Man inherits the land
And the future of the world is in your hands
So just throw your hands in the air
And wave 'em like you just don't care
And if you believe that you're the future
Scream it out and say 'Oh yeah!' ('Oh yeah!')
'Oh yeah!' ('Oh yeah!')
Raah!
Beat Street Breakdown
Raah!
Hip Hop!
Hip Hop!
Beat Street
The king of the beat
You see him rocking that beat from across the street
And Huh Huh!
Beat Street is a lesson too, because you can't let the Streets beat you!
Well a picture can express a thousand words to describe all the beauty of life you give
And if the world was yours to do over, I know you'd paint a better place to live
Where the colours would swirl and the boys and girls can grow in peace and harmony
And where murals stand on walls so grand as far as the eyes are able to see, Ha!
I never knew art til I saw your face and there'll never be one to take your place
'Cause each and every time you touch the spray paint can
Michelangelo's soul controls your hand
Then serenades of blue and red and the beauty of the rainbow fills your head
Crescendo of colours hang in tune, Man why oh why d'ya have to die so soon?
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, where the good die young it's all thy must
'Cause as life must live, death must die and the tear shall fall from the living eye, Huh!
The teardrops fall for the state of mind of the beautiful lady that you left behind
In love and alone, but now you're dead, and she still can't get you out of her head, Huh!
More tears fall for all you've done, trying to be a good father to your only son
But now who's gonna make sure that he's fed, put a shirt on his back and a roof overhead?
Tell me who's gonna dream the impossible dream of the beautiful cities in the islands genes?
When your works of art brought into being all that the ghetto stopped you from seeing
Bums on the sidewalk, garbage in the streets, abandoned buildings, bricks of concrete
The ladies on the corner are selling their bodies, and everybody wants a part in that party
I'm hanging out tough, rocking late at night, running wild in the town of the neon light
You either play some ball or stand in the hall Huh!
You gotta make something outta nothing at all
I'm sitting in the classroom learning the rules and it says you can't do graffiti in school
They can't be wrong in the hallowed hall, so my notebook turned into a brick wall
The heart of a lion and the courage of three, and the mind of a man much wiser than me
You're the soul of the brother who won't come back
Who died in my arms on the railroad track
'Cause I'm caught in the rat race, looking for my own space
There's gotta be a better place for you and me
There's pie in the sky, and an eye for an eye
Some people gotta die just to be free
You search for justice and what do you find?
You find just us on the unemployment line
You find just us sweating from dawn to dusk
There's no justice, there's Huh, just us, Ha!
Still life urban masterpiece, your trademark was written on trains and walls
A million dollar gift only God released, and yet you got killed for nothing at all
So after this there'll be no more hard times, no more bad times and no more pain
No more chump change, none of that bull
Just movies, museums and the hall of fame
So all you Hip Hops get on up, and let's take it to the top where we belong
'Cause the age of the Beat Street wave is here
Everybody let's sing along, now c'mon, say 'Ho!' ('Ho!'), Say 'Ho!' ('Ho!')
And to let me know I'm rocking the microphone everybody say 'Ramo!' ('Ramo!')
'Ramo!' ('Ramo!')
Raah!
A newspaper burns in the sand, and the headlines say 'Man destroys Man!'
Extra! Extra! Read all the bad news on the war for peace that everybody would lose
The rise and fall, the last great empire, the sound of the whole world caught on fire
The ruthless struggle, the desperate gamble
The game that left the whole world in shambles
The cheats, the lies, the alibis
And the foolish attempt to conquer the skies
Lost in space, and what is it worth, huh?
The president just forgot about Earth
Spending multi billions, and maybe even trillions
The cost of weapons ran into zillions
There's gold in the street, and diamonds under feet
And the children in Africa don't even eat
Flies on their faces, they're living like mice
And the houses even make the ghetto look nice, Huh!
The water tastes funny, it's forever too sunny
And they work all month and don't make no money
A fight for power, a nuclear shower
And people shout out in the darkest hour
Of sights unseen and voices unheard
And finally the bomb gets the last word
Christians killed Muslims, and Germans killed Jews
And everybody's bodies are used and abused, Huh!
Minds are poisoned and souls are polluted
Superiority complex is deep rooted
Leeches and lice's, and people got prices
Egomaniacs control the self-righteous
Nothing is sacred and nothing is pure
So the revelation of death is our cure
Hitler and Caesar, Custer and Reagan
Napoleon, Castro, Mussolini and Begin
Ghengis Khan and the Shah of Iran
Mixed with the blood of the weaker man
The peoples in terror, the leaders made the error
And now they can't even look in the mirror
'Cause we gotta suffer while things get rougher
And that's the reason why we got to get tougher
To learn from the past and work for the future
And don't be a slave to no computer
'Cause the Children of Man inherits the land
And the future of the world is in your hands
So just throw your hands in the air
And wave 'em like you just don't care
And if you believe that you're the future
Scream it out and say 'Oh yeah!' ('Oh yeah!')
'Oh yeah!' ('Oh yeah!')
Raah!
Beat Street Breakdown
Raah!
Hip Hop!
The song "Beat Street" by Grandmaster Flash is a social commentary about the struggles faced by the marginalized communities living in the inner city streets. The song highlights the issues of poverty, crime, and the lack of opportunities. The lyrics shed light on the issue of police brutality, inadequate education, and the rise of the Hip Hop movement. The song emphasizes that the streets are beating their residents down, but one has to rise above it to succeed. It highlights how the Hip Hop movement emerged as a voice of resistance against injustice and oppression.
The song covers various aspects of inner-city life, from graffiti tagging, rebellion against authority, to drug addiction and gang life. Grandmaster Flash emphasizes the need to be creative and innovative to survive in the streets, urging people to find their own space and make something out of nothing. The song's central theme is uplifting people from poverty and struggle and empowering them with the belief that they can make a difference.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: MELLE MEL, MELVIN GLOVER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
To comment on or correct specific content, highlight it
More Genres
No Artists Found
More Artists
Load All
No Albums Found
More Albums
Load All
No Tracks Found
Genre not found
Artist not found
Album not found
Search results not found
Song not found
@omalone1169
@@ricorob100 Liverpool had it all, and twice they blew it. Having matched the Man City record of 17 consecutive wins they twice had the chance to better it, and blew it twice. They were held at Old Trafford 1-1 (Oct 2019) to end their 17 winning streak in the league, and again against Watford who ended their 18 game winning run and 44 game unbeaten run, which started against City 2-1 in the previous season (Jan 2019) They had won 9 consecutive games at the end of it to secure 97 points, the third highest in EPL history.
Liverpool were 22 points ahead of City following their defeat to Watford and still had records in sight. They were five short of the Arsenal record of 2003/4 but did edge Huddersfield (Dec 2010-Nov 20110 league one record by 1. They could have still managed the earliest ever title win to beat the 2000-01 United record, and could have matched the points tally but faltered. They were held by Everton two games later before being beaten 4-0 at City with the title already won thanks to Chelsea beating City 2-1.
Burnley ended the Anfield run of 24 consecutive wins in July 2020 to ensure Liverpool would not end the season having won every home match. Arsenal then won 2-1 ensuring they would not match the City record set on the final day of the 2018-19 run where they only lost twice: to Liverpool 4-3 and United 2-3. That season Palace’s dramatic 0-0 draw ended their run of 18 consecutive wins meaning Guardiola fell short of his own record of 19 set by Bayern when he were in Germany. He won 0-3 in Dortmund who return the favour 0-3 by the time the title was won. Months later, in 2020 Burnley return to Anfield to finish the job
https://nomasons.wordpress.com/2021/01/29/liverpool-blues-one-punch-from-the-promised-land/
Our football tactics group is here:
https://chat.whatsapp.com/FDbEDa6c7N89UP4gIa2JW3
@bryaningle6034
This still gives me chills almost 40 years later.
@skyemoody7103
When you hear his music put the bee, only, how would I explain that?
@IAmAlmightyGod
Greatest bars of all time
@zacharytunson3673
Me to i start dancing and pop in my cousin's be like man you still can do that shit I be like hell yeah
@firstghost3038
This is the greatest rap song of all time because it covers everything that will ever be talked about afterwards.
@unknownx7252
That's why I shook my head when people were clowning for toying with Em. I was like, they must not know about this classic.
@SatanDynastyKiller
Melle Mel was way ahead of his time, one of the greatest, along with The Message, hip hop songs ever! Rrrraaahh!!!
@alanreda2140
✊🏼
@DBankx
AhHaHaHa 👑
@joshuacharnes1
And new york new york