DJ Grandmaster Flash and his group, the Furious Five were hip-hop’s greatest innovators, transcending the genre’s party music origins to explore the full scope of its lyrical and sonic horizons. Grandmaster Flash began spinning records as a teen growing up in the Bronx, performing live at dances and block parties. He single-handedly developed a series of groundbreaking techniques including “cutting,” “back-spinning,” and “phasing” – in short, creating the vocabulary which DJs continue to follow today. Throughout the 70s and 80s, Flash released records that went on to become landmark releases proving the existence of a market for hip-hop and rap. Hits include “Superappin’,” “Freedom,” “The Message,” and 1983’s anti-cocaine polemic “White Lines.” After a series of Grandmaster Flash solo albums including 1985’s They Said It Couldn’t Be Done, 1986’s The Source, and 1987’s Da Bop Boom Bang, he reformed the original Furious Five lineup for a charity concert at Madison Square Garden. Except for a few compilations during the late 90s, Flash was relatively quite until 2002, when a pair of mix albums appeared: The Official Adventures of Grandmaster Flash and Essential Mix: Classic Edition.