Album dossier / 1982

The Message

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five · Hip-Hop/Old-School

'The Message' was largely written and performed not by the credited group but by Sugar Hill Records session percussionist Ed 'Duke Bootee' Fletcher, who first sketched its stark synth riff and beat while banging a rhythm on an empty plastic water bottle on a studio break. Label boss Sylvia Robinson heard it, pushed producer Clifton 'Jiggs' Chase and Fletcher to finish it as a serious, non-party rap, and, when the Furious Five balked at recording it, had Fletcher cut the reference vocal himself; only Melle Mel, who recycled a verse from the earlier single 'Superrappin', actually appears alongside Fletcher on the finished track -- Grandmaster Flash plays no part in it at all. Built from a DMX drum machine, Fletcher's Prophet-5 synth line and Skip McDonald's guitar (with Zapp's 'More Bounce to the Ounce' and Eno/Byrne's 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' cited by Fletcher as influences), the 7:11 track went gold within eleven days of release, later became the first rap recording added to the National Recording Registry, and helped carry Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007 -- even though Duke Bootee, its true author, was not inducted alongside them.