Grandmaster Flash at Columbia
As part of his Birth of a Culture Tour, Grandmaster Flash will join Dean Sorett's Hip Hop at 50 course to discuss the history and birth of Hip Hop and provide a detailed account on his Quick Mix Theory which laid the foundation for break dancing and rapping – including a live demonstration using turntables.
- Discussion on the birth of Hip Hop, moderated by Dean Sorett
- Demo of Quick Mix Theory and turntables
- Open forum Q&A with students
Birth of a Culture
Hip Hop was born in the Bronx in the early ‘70s. The Bronx was a desolate, forgotten corner of the world. As Flash likes to say, “where I come from, there was nothing.” But there was something. There was human genius, and that genius made something great out of nothing. They invented new music technology from dump yard scraps and stolen parts from streetlights. They decoded the DNA structure of musical rhythm and vinyl and mixed from samples to unleash a whole new dimension of musical art.
Since then, Hip Hop has evolved into the world’s leading musical genre and cultural movement. It is an extraordinary achievement of the U.S. Black community. It took talent, smart people and hard work to make it happen.
It is a story that needs to be told.
About the Course — Hip Hop at 50: Music, Politics, Religion
Taught by Columbia College Dean Josef Sorett, Professor of Religion and African American & African Diaspora Studies, this undergraduate lecture course introduces students to the study of religion through an engagement with the history of Hip Hop music. More specifically, this course is organized chronologically to narrate a history of religion in the United States (circa 1970 to the present day) by mapping the ways that a variety of religious ideas and practices have animated rap music’s evolution and expansion during this time period.
