The Concept to Party on Tuesday

Grandmaster Flash

Hip Hop, People, Places & Things 2018 presented by Katsching Katschang Katschung, Gartenbaukino, Austria 20180220

The most exciting Tuesday is when a legend is going to perform his new special show in a cinema. An invention of one of the inventors of Hip Hop itself, of which you don’t know what to expect.

Matt Boroff had his own vision and now Grandmaster Flash presents his one. The turntables and light bars don’t tell much. But then an intro is played, how the Grandmaster invented his art in the 70s, using the turntable as instrument, doing marks with crayons to have full control over the music. For block parties they got the electricity from street lamps and played all genres as music had no colour.

When the pioneer DJ gets on stage and yells the liberating “Stand up!”, the crowd fills all spaces in front of the stage. There is a part of the set about New York starting with Alicia Keys, a part where Flash pays homage to e.g. Phife, Jam Master Jay and Tupac. Pictures, videos, record covers and the best thing, a camera from the top on the hands on the turntables accompany the music. And as he plays his biggest hit “The Message”, the Grandmaster takes a sip of his cup and tells the audience to sing it.

Suddenly he stops. With a nearly childish joy, the 60-year-old asks the people if he should push the button, to bring them on the screen. And as he does, they celebrate it. Only the camera could have been a bit higher and used more often as well as the one showing his hands. Apart from that, this show is the illest party ever, because of its host and how he motivates the crowd with hits from the Bee Gees to Bowie, from Mobb Deep to Snoop Dogg, from AC/DC to Eurythmics. No flu holds the Grandmaster and his supporters from party on a Tuesday.