Almost every music genre has a batch of fans that consider the earliest formative material to be the never-bettered "pure" expression of the style. In jazz you have Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five records. In blues take your pick of pre-WWII blues artists like Son House or Charley Patton. In rock'n'roll you have Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry. In punk you have the Ramones. Even if you don't particularly rate such seminal artists, you still have to admire their mastery of their respective idioms and the way each came to define a form.
Hip-hop doesn't seem to work the same way; few if any fans believe it peaked with the sides released by Enjoy and Sugarhill at the dawn of the 80s, as much as they might dig selected singles. Maybe hip-hop was such a new and radical expression it took its community a few years to understand what it was about and how best its innovations could be applied. It being the late 70s, a time when recording was widespread and after a few novelty records had become hits, the awkward early stages were fully documented, to resurface later on endless streams of "Old School" comps and, occasionally, reissues of complete albums. Here are two such artifacts, the first two long-players by Grandmaster Flash's group. Everyone knows now how influential Grandmaster Flash was to the mechanics of DJing, with his invention and popularization of various mixing and scratching techniques. And speaking of the "early stuff is best" phenomenon mentioned above, his 7-minute piece "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" (not included on these records) is arguably the finest DJ collage in hip-hop history. The group released a handful of other stellar early singles-- "Superrappin'", "Freedom", "Birthday Party". As an "album artist," though, well...
The Message has two absolutely essential songs, both of which have been widely anthologized. The title track has rightly been hailed as hip-hop's first overtly political expression, with sharply observed scenes of New York at its broken-down worst voiced by lead Furious Five rapper Grandmaster Melle Mel. Less discussed is the fantastically likable musical backing, with the squelchy synth riff that's now completely burned into the collective pop music consciousness, and it's stiff'n'funky drum machine beat. But even the sonic treat of "The Message" pales next to the polished chrome man-machine of "Scorpio", for my money the greatest early electro track and the best vocodered robot-rap of all time.
The next tier of The Message contains single "It's Nasty" and the upbeat party jam "She's Fresh". The former appropriates the music from Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love" the way Sugerhill Gang appropriated Chic, and no matter what you're doing out front, it's hard to go wrong with that particular synth riff and beat. Down further is "It's a Shame", a forgettable but inoffensive mid-tempo rap, and then the record bottoms out with "Dreamin" (a tribute to Stevie Wonder-- sample lyrics: "Stevie, you make me wonder. I dream about you, Stevie") and "You Are", abysmal ballads that sound like they were pulled from a "Mr. Show" parody.
Shortly after The Message was released Melle Mel became Grandmaster Melle Mel and took two of the Furious Five with him to form his own group. Melle Mel recorded "White Lines (Don't Do It)," the final classic track associated with this crew. Flash soldiered on, assembling a new group and recorded They Said it Couldn't Be Done. Oddly, it's more consistent than the debut, with no flat-out bad tracks, but also no real high points. The use of synthesizers is more sophisticated (which isn't always a good thing), and some of the quick-cut proto sampling has historical interest. When the chorus hooks are on, as with "Girls Like the Way She Spins", it's not bad. It was 1985, though, and by then Run D.M.C. was on the scene; relatively speaking Grandmaster Flash sounds way behind. Sensing this, Flash steals a title and a sound with "Rock the House", which has guitars and a mid-tempo rock backbeat though none of the energy of the guys from Hollis. Flash would release a couple more records in the 80s without much success, and then he dropped off the radar, resurfacing periodically to play shows when given a boost by current DJs who understand his importance to hip-hop's development. In his world, though, "importance" doesn't necessarily pay.
