Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five "White Lines" - C or D?

more interesting is the lyrical content of the song. where there any other records at the time that delivered such a stinging attack on cocaine? i laugh at how Duran Duran later covered the track even though they were probably charlied out of their bonces when this track was first released.

of course it is hip hop - yes its got that rick james style to it but the boundaries between funk and early hip hop where very thin (rappers delight had a backing group and the message was a doug wimbash score)

but by the nature of hip hop and not rap then grandmaster flash and the furious five are so hip hop - shit he near enough invented it - scratching, breakin, graffitti, super-rappin (and fly kicks) where the component parts of hip hop.

flash is, flash is, flash is on the beatbox running........on.

one of my favorite songs ever

yeah, how could it possibly be a dud, this is all-time classic

i just downloaded this ringtone.

who are these strange people that don't like this song

Is it a myth that Melle Mel was actually high when recording this, or has he confirmed it?

does someone know the history of the production? papawheelio? flash actually had nothing to do with it right?

Hurray interpretive dancers!

They mentioned he was high on that And You Don't Stop doc. series on Vh1 I think.

discogs says this:

Name of the artist here should actually be "Grandmaster & Melle Mel". This unique wording was the result of an ugly legal suit between Melle Mel (Melvin Glover) and Grandmaster Flash (Joseph Saddler). When Flash was essentially pushed out of his own group - especially in the fact that he was a non-player on the breakthrough Grandmaster Flash & Furious 5 track "The Message" - Melle Mel (with the encouragement of Sugarhill Records label head Sylvia Robinson) decided that he would take Flash's place in the band - and essentially take his name as well. During this time, the definitive singles "The Message II" and "New York, New York" were released under the name of Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5, even though Flash had nothing to do with these releases.
The net result of the lawsuit forced Sugar Hill and Melle Mel to cease the theft of Flash's name - which resulted in the White Lines singles all being pressed with the name "Grandmaster & Melle Mel", with Melle Mel's name in larger type than "Grandmaster".

to be fair, didnt flash play 'cavern' out all the time?

Silverfish do a great cover.

of course Melle Mel was high when this was recorded, for "White Lines" is a classic pro-coke song..."don't don't do it" =
do it"...

"The Message" was way better. Not least because it used nice and soft synth sounds and not all those harsh digital samples.

you heard the man

Come on, don't even start! This is as classic as [anything anyone wants to mention as classic] and probably more so.

Classic as Santa Esmeralda?

Love this song. Sad to say, though, I've never heard the Liquid Liquid song that it samples. Which part is the sample? The funky horns after the "So Don't Do it!" part?

xpost

Yes!

Little Jack Horner, sittin' on a corner
With no shoes and clothes
This ain't funny, but he took his money
And sniffed it up his nose

The John DeLorean reference: also CLASSIC

Which part is the sample?

Not sampled but replayed. Just the bassline, the drums, the "something like a phenomenon" line.

preview it here:

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=19037

Liquid Liquid - Cavern

Wow that song and the animation are amazing.

Wait a minute... so Grandmaster Flash never had anything to do with this song or "The Message"??? Why is he so revered nowadays as a hip-hop legend, then???

This song is good, but I think it would've worked a lot better if Melle made the lyrics more explicitly pro-cocaine. Didn't he camoflauge it as an anti-drug song to make it more radio-friendly?

Interesting to read that Sugar Hill Records was ruined because of the Liquid Liquid lawsuit. Liquid Liquid killed Sugar Hill Records!!

"wheels of steel"

I don't believe Sugar Hill was ruined because of the lawsuit. 99 was ruined. Who'd run out of money first? If 99 was ruined, why would Sugar Hill? Maybe they didn't have many more good records in them?

Flash was a hip-hop legend before the Message was even recorded!

good history of 99 recs on the optimo site, scroll down to the 'optimo' entry for details on the 99/sugar hill dispute.

Sylvia "Pillow Talk" Robinson killed Sugar Hill records, by some accounts...

Wait a minute... so Grandmaster Flash never had anything to do with this song or "The Message"???

story :

http://yaheard.com/grand-master-fraud-did-a-hip-hop-pioneer-fake-it-to-make-it/

i always knew that the furious five were the rapping crew, but i have to admit i assumed that flash put the record together ..

he's not even credited on it

i only have the track on various sugarhill mixtapes, and have never delved into the credits to be honest.

yeah if you delve into the stuff released after The Message LP things get really weird quick, you've got Flash with a new crew of MCs, releases by "Grandmaster Melle Mel", and a bunch of stuff where it seems like they're intentionally trying to mislead you about who's actually on the track. as far as I know they all fell hard after "White Lines" (which is actually just Melle Mel if I remember) when they really were positioned to achieve the sort of global success that Run DMC had.

Eh, it's all a muddle, isn't it? Iirc, Melle Mel barely contributed himself to "The Message," which was mostly Ed Fletcher/Duke Bootee, Jiggs Chase and ... Keith LeBlanc? (The last of whom gets no credit). And "White Lines" obviously is "Cavern" played by the Sugar Hill crew, though of course Liquid Liquid gets no credit. I always saw Sugar Hill as a collective of sorts, of musicians, producers and rappers, like Motown or Studio One or whatever, with all the attendant arguing about money. There'd be a lot more credibility complaining about credit if Flash were not clearly a talented DJ pioneer; calling him Milli Vanilli is pretty harsh.

Didn't Johnny Juice do all the scratching on the PE albums, not Terminator X?

yeah Flash was a pretty great DJ in his own right. I have this disc called "The Official Adventures of Grandmaster Flash" which is sort of like his DJ mixtape and it's really good, all "Wheels of Steel"-type stuff, I think it was recorded recently but it's done in his old style. so who knows who did what; they didn't exactly write a lot of actual music, and when they're not sampling or borrowing things get dire quick (see: all those post-84 Flash & associates releases)

I do understand their bitterness. Obviously their place in history is secure, what with being in the R&R hall of fame and all, but they really could've ruled the decade had everyone gotten along.

this thread is a disaster

http://www.ebay.com/itm/OPTION-20-MAY-JUNE-1988-HAL-WILLNER-THE-VERLAINES-DUKE-BOOTEE-NICKOIDS-/380867829599

I need to find my copy of my 1988 interview of Ed Duke Bootie Fletcher for Option magazine

this thread is a disaster

yeah really! wtf

http://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/hip-hop-strip-78.jpg

*this* is why Flash is fucking legendary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHIsNQ3eh2g

the first record composed entirely of samples, played live in the studio by Flash w no edits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JQhiOV_nZM

Not technically samples then, but actual records

right, no sample - sooo first record composed entirely of other records? not sure what the correct term would be

no sampleR

Come on y'all, Flash would be a legend even if he never had a record to his name.

^^^

and Scorpio callin Flash the "Milli Vanilli of rap" is pretty fucking rich/sour grapes/nonsense coming from a guy that did his share of lip-syncing.

until rap started being pressed to vinyl it was literally Scorpio's job to get on a microphone and tell people how good Grandmaster Flash was...

Does sound like Flash is acting like a dick tho.

not surprised there would be tons of bad blood between these dudes given all the poor professional decisions they made way back when, but it's irrelevant to Flash's actual accomplishments

That Wildstyle scene is even better with the uncensored Bob James sample!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvlmrcxMKF4