Grandmaster Flash @ Mixed Bizness, 20 Oct

Throughout the course of hip hop's history, few names have become as well known to music lovers across the globe as that of Grandmaster Flash. Not only was he one of the main players in hip hop's development as a worldwide musical culture but his pioneering use of the turntables make him the first DJ to play Technics as a musical instrument, helping to raise the status of the DJ to a genuine artistic position.

Flash developed his love of vinyl as a child playing with his father's records. By the time he was a teenager, studying electronics and engineering in school by day, he was already spinning records at block parties and in public parks. Studying one particular DJ, known as Kool Herc, and monitoring the crowd's responses, led him to create and elevate this turntable art form as he developed such innovative turntable techniques as live re-editing the records in his bag and extending the break in those recorded songs. He was scientifically inventing and demonstrating such methods and concepts he collectively called "The Quick Mix Theory". These innovations quickly became recognised across the world, and put both Flash and the Bronx on the global musical map.