- Yaheard.com recently spoke with Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame inductee and Furious Five original member Scorpio, who still performs with Melle Mel and keeps good relations with the rest of The Furious Five, minus Grand Master Flash. He tells a story of extortion, fraud and betrayal. He tells the story of a public eager to embrace Hip Hop and looking for Hip Hop heroes to believe in. A story of a man who knew the truth, but decided to push that to the side for money and fame. Scorpio and Melle Mel refer to Grand Master Flash as “the Milli Vanilli of rap”
This article is pretty bullshit, as argued by this comment: Sure, it's a dick move of Flash to not support the Furious Five at all, but to say that he had no contribution at all, just because samplers didn't exist at the time, is seriously biased, and not a fair representation of what was going on at the time.This article wreaks of jealousy and I hope they work out their differences.... but how dare they use the word "fraud" in the title without addressing all sides of the issue... Such bullsh*t! Sugarhill records, along with every other record label always hired a house band to replay the tracks the DJ's used to cut up live. "Good Times - Rappers Delight", "Liquid Liquid - White Lines" etc, for every record they recorded, there was an original record that Flash used to cut, which the house band simply replayed. There were no samplers so that's how it was back then. However Grandmaster Flash & the Furious 5 spent years honing their craft way before Sugarhill, so to say Flash wasn't a contributor years later is complete rubbish. Flash was hands down the best DJ in NYC and could rock a beatbox like no other, and yes he recieved a great deal of attention because of that fact, The Furious five benefitted from that attention, they performed together and eventually released records and I'm sure that extra hype of having Flash involved helped that deal happen as well... this was the very early stages of rap music and the money was in the live performances, and on stage it was only Two Turntables & A Microphone... there was no band, so why complain years later when it's what got them there in the first place?
I was bummed after reading this interview (I've been posting more of those lately for some reason). It's hard to say that's the entire story but it doesn't look good for Grand Master Flash. Surprised I didn't see this anywhere else.