Tuesday, November 11, 2008

GRANDMASTER FLOWERS - BROOKLYN PARK JAM 1979

Shouts to the people at Deep House Page. While I was looking for some history on Grandmaster FlowersI came across the piece below. This man opened for James Brown @ Yankee Stadium in 1968. He is a pioneer that is not talked about as much as he should be. Read below and you will understand the importance of paying respect to the people that started this culture:

I'm in the midst of building with my man Troy from Uptown/Harlem, In regards to Troy doing a dedication interview/Article, On Grandmaster Flowers from Brooklyn, GrandMaster Flowers, Was one of the first cats to rock on the Dj Circuit in New York, Going back to 1969(QJ From Brooklyn, Along with Pete Dj Jones), Were the first cats to rock throwdowns on the Dj circuit in New York

Via the parks circuits, Going back to the mid/late 60's, The First time that i remember seeing Grandmaster Flowers rock live, Was in the summer of 1975, At Riis Beach in Queens(Near the Brooklyn/Queens Borderline), Riis Beach and Rockaway Beach, Were the spots in Queens, Where cats such as Grandmaster Flowers,Maboya,Pete Dj Jones,Dj Plummer,The Smith

Brothers,Etc, Used to rock throwdowns, During the early 70's to early 80's, Grandmaster Flowers influenced mad cats to become Dj's, Such as, Karima Robinson(Who was the first cat to mix at Tribeca's, On North Moore St, Near West Broadway, During the mid to late 70's), Francios K,Big Bob(Empire Skating Rink in Brooklyn/Rip),Flash(Grandmaster Flash),Etc, All of us, Who

love the Dance music scene, Owe mad respect to the memory of Grandmaster Flowers to The ninth power, My man Troy, Has more than a few interviews lined up, On Jayquan's site(The Foundation/jayquan.com), Here's some words from Paradise from XClan, As told to my man Markskillz(Wax Poetic's magazine), In regards to Grandmaster Flowers, Which was very sad, Along with being very uplifting too, Also, The Battle between Flash

(GrandMaster Flash vs Grandmaster Flowers), Took place at The Stardust Ballroom in The Bronx(Boston Road and Fish Ave in the Bronx), In 1979, I was not at the Battle between Flash and Grandmaster Flowers, But, I did hear that Flash was doing alot of tricks(Cutting,Scratchin,Rocking the breaks of plates,Etc, While Grandmaster Flowers was Mixing and Blending plates(Rockin

The breaks of plates too), Now, If Flash would have battled Grandmaster Flowers, In regards to rocking a spot allnight to the morning lite, In regards to mixing and blending, Opposed to doing tricks, Shit, I Most definitely know who would have took the prize back to Brooklyn that night(WORD/LOL).

The story I wanna get is Grandmaster Cameron Flowers. EZ Mike told me that Flash and Flowers battled once in the late 70's and Flash whupped his ass! They gave Flash a trophy for that battle. But Flowers really
respected Flash.

Back in the 90's the name Grandmaster Flowers was just an urban legend. As you've written on your tape list Troy, Flowers died because of his addiction, he lived his last days as a panhandler. Paradise of X CLan told me this story:

"In Brooklyn, Flowers was to brothers in Brooklyn what Kool Herc was to brothers in the Bronx. Everybody loved and followed Flowers. Lumumba (Professor X - God Rest His Soul) loved Flowers!

One day we were either coming off tour or going on tour. The group was really blowing up. We were riding around midtown Manhattan, when all of a sudden Lumumba said, "Stop the car!"

All Lumumba could say was "Oh stuff...oh stuff!'

He got out and walked toward a brother with a sign in his hand. The guy was really down on his luck and was in bad shape. He bought him back to the car and introduced him to us. He said, 'This is Grandmaster Flowers!"

Lumumba was speaking to us about the jams and how hard Flowers used to rock and then he looked at him and lunged at him. I had to hold him back. Lumumba was crying, he kept saying, 'How could you do this to yourself? How could you do this to yourself! Don't you know that your responsible for all of this we're doing now!"

We cleaned Flowers up and took him on tour with us, he was our sound man."

Yo fellas, I saw X Clan a few times back in the day, I had no idea that the dude that was setting their equipment up was the legendary Grandmaster Flowers, the man that bears the distinction of being of one of - if not THE first Black mobile disc jockey in New York City to mix (blend) records as we know it today.

THE BROOKLYN PARK JAM
http://www.divshare.com/download/5790239-a24

1 comment:

The Dynamic Hamza 21® said...

I used have a link to this on my blog but then the link went dead. This a great piece of history.