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Standing at a podium, legendary hip-hop artist Grandmaster Flash, a bright orange hoodie sprouting from under his white leather jacket, shared the story of how he fell in love with vinyl records and turntables while growing up in the Bronx. His father, a railroad worker and serious collector of vinyl records, wouldn't let him go near the closet where he kept them. But young Flash, despite the punishments, played the records anyway.
He went on to become one of hip-hop's pioneering disc jockeys of the early 1970s, assembling one of rap's first groups, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, and elevating the role of DJ to an art form with such techniques as cutting, scratching and mixing.
"I was the first DJ to make the turntable an instrument," said Flash on Tuesday at an announcement by the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History of its plans to immortalize hip- hop culture in an exhibit, The museum's director, Brent D. Glass, unveiled the museum's initiative.
The project will gather artifacts, oral histories and other multimedia components tracing hip-hop's evolution from a 1970s Bronx pastime to a global cultural juggernaut. It's projected to cost as much as $2 million and take up to five years to finish.
On display at the New York City hotel where the announcement was held were items donated by hip-hop pioneers including gangsta rapper- turned-television star Ice-T, MC Lyte, Afrika Bambaataa and DJ Kool Herc. All but Lyte attended the announcement.
Flash gave a Technics turntable, which he calls his "war table," a vinyl copy of 1978's "Bustin' Loose Part 1," his trademark black and white customized Kangol hat and a mixer.
Ice-T, the only West Coast rapper at the announcement, handed over a framed poster for his 1991 single "New Jack Hustler" and two versions of his 1993 CD "Home Invasion," the first of which he released himself after creative differences with his record label.
"Hip-hop never asked for acceptance," Ice-T said after the announcement, "but we got it, and that's a wonderful thing."
Afrika Bambaataa, a DJ who in 1982 organized the first European hip-hop tour, donated his jacket bearing black nationalist Marcus Garvey's name and image, a red fez and a poster of the Source magazine's 50th issue cover, which he graced with Flash and Herc.
Herc, who blasted the "hooliganism" in hip-hop today, said he planned to donate an amplifier, a Technics SL-1100 turntable from the early 1970s and speakers.
Def Jam Records co-founder Russell Simmons gave away a wooden advertisement for Phat Farm, the clothing company he started.
(C) 2006 The Cincinnati Post. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved
