Hip-Hop Pioneer Speaks Volumes

  Tonight, Friday, June 26th, kicks off this weekend’s amazing Sunset Music Festival with performances by, practically everyone, at world famous venues like the Viper Room, The Roxy Theatre, Whisky A-Go-Go, House of Blues, Cat Club, and Key Club on the Notorious Sunset Strip in West Hollywood.
But that’s not why I’m here.
It’s 20 minutes to seven o’clock and with all the excitement in close proximity for the festival, there’s one spot that remains bizarrely unaffected.   All is still queerly quiet at Book Soup, the 32 year old independent book store that lives on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles.  Right now it’s just me paling amongst a giant sea of books, excitedly awaiting the arrival of Joseph Saddler, better known as hip-hop pioneer, Grandmaster Flash.  He’s coming to present the release of his new tell-all book, The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats.   Even the quiet store boasts their anticipation with the atypical hip-hop beats registering from some mysterious speakers living in the labyrinth of books.
The anxious crowd begins to multiply as it gets closer to Flash’s arrival.  That familiarly ripe happy hour fragrance permeates the small store.  A tall and handsome deejay comes and sets up some turntables.  So now, we’ve got two turntables and a microphone.   The real beats start now sending the small crowd soaring.  Black faces, white faces, pink nails, backwards caps, suits and wrinkles are all bobbing and tapping.  The energy rises and the speakers beg, “Everybody say party” and then the music inexplicably shuts off.  Someone is heard in another corner that is not mine, asking meekly, “Did he cut off the music because we didn’t say party?”  You can’t make stuff like this up.
Suddenly a young man steps up to the microphone.  It takes a few moments, and then I join the crowd in recognition, welcoming him.  His name is DJ Felli Fel and it occurs to me what a perfect introduction this serves for the Grandmaster himself.  Felli Fel is no stranger to the art of hip-hop pioneering.  As one of the most influential DJ’s on the West Coast, he has already played an integral part in shaping the sound of popular music in America.  Most of us locals are familiar with him because of his nightly show on Los Angeles’ top rated radio station, Power 106, and he’s recently gained nationwide notoriety with the release of his self-produced certified Gold single “Get Buck in Here”.  He excitedly stands before us like a kid in a candy store explaining how he grew up emulating the scratching sounds he heard on Grandmaster Flash’s hip-hop records, “I took it and put it on my mom’s turntable and tore her turntables up!  That was the first record I actually scratched on,” and then he introduces our man with,” I could talk to Flash all night long.”
Flash finally strides out in all his hip-hip glory.  He’s dazzlingly bright in his white Kangol cap and LaCrosse polo.  His earlobes are unrecognizable, hidden under sparkling diamond post earrings, the right one a large “G” and the left of course a matching “F”.  As I stand and ponder how his choice of jewelry probably set him back more than my expenses for an entire fiscal year, he begins to introduce his newly published book. 
Right from the start he’s much more of a storyteller than anyone could have expected.  I notice that he’s delivering his story directly from the first pages of the book, but just in Grandmaster fashion, he does it in style.  Where the pages in any biography lean towards being stale and one-dimensional, Flash acts out his childhood with all the strength, physicality and sense of wonder that a 50-year-old could muster…and then some.  His storytelling is like a new dance move fluidly matching the now hushed volume of the beats in the background.
He doesn’t look as rough as his early days suggest, however you can take the boy out of the Bronx, but you can’t take the Bronx out of the man.  “Yo, could you stop with that flashing in my face, it’s really starting to annoy me,” he says to an over zealous photog that is snapping away at his every move.  It’s in this moment that I have to pause and chuckle at the fact that Flash can’t deal with the flashes.  It’s ironic and poetic at the same time.
He leaves us with the worldview that sometimes you’ve just got to, “Forgive, let go, and let God”.  Then he righteously steps up to the turntables and I can feel the hot breath on my shoulder as the crowd collectively moves in. 
He reluctantly leaves his spinning, with the persuasion of a Book Soup employee to start the token signing of the books.  I graciously step to the back of the 50 person queue, hoping perhaps for another mild Bronx blow up at some unsuspecting fan.  His patience waned towards the end of the line as he grew visibly annoyed with the gentleman in front of me who had two books and a poster to be signed. 
I heard an audible sigh of relief when he looked up to see my 20-something low cut summer top as I flashed my smile and said, “Thanks for coming”.  He smiled back, took a second to regain his composure and added, suavely, “Thanks for listening”. 
He’s welcome.  As I take my freshly signed copy of The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats out of Book Soup that night, I also take with me one unforgettable event.