Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, American group that was instrumental in the development of hip-hop music. The members were Grandmaster Flash, Cowboy, Melle Mel, Kidd Creole, Mr. Ness (also called Scorpio), and Rahiem.

Formed in the Bronx, New York City, in 1976, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were one of the first multimember rapping crews. They were a staple of the earliest hip-hop shows in the Bronx and Harlem, and nonrapping member Grandmaster Flash was credited with being an inventor and innovator of many of the techniques and performing gimmicks associated with hip-hop deejaying. He also jury-rigged a drum machine into his turntable and created miniature audio dramas on his legendary 12-inch single “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” (1981) that presaged digital sampling.

As recording artists on hip-hop’s flagship label, Sugar Hill Records, the group was originally known for high-energy singles such as “Freedom” (1980) and “Birthday Party” (1981), which combined their rhyme skills with slick production. With their depiction of the harsh realities of ghetto life in “The Message” (1982), they became the pioneers of socially conscious protest rap, inspiring the likes of Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Boogie Down Production’s KRS-One to create provocative social commentary in the manner of Bob Dylan and Bob Marley. The group also tackled drug abuse in “White Lines (Don’t Do It)” (1983). In 1982 Grandmaster Flash appeared in the hip-hop film Wild Style, along with several other rap trailblazers such as the Cold Crush Brothers.

Tensions arose within the group over billing on songs (Melle Mel was the only member who performed on “The Message”), and Grandmaster Flash sued Sugar Hill over unpaid royalties.

By the mid-1980s the group had disbanded, and later reunions were short-lived. Cowboy died in 1989 at age 28, reportedly from a drug overdose. In 2022 Kidd Creole was sentenced to 16 years in prison for killing a homeless man in 2017.

Grandmaster Flash published two memoirs: The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats (2008; with David Ritz), which documents his younger days and his struggles with drug addiction, and Birth of a Culture (2026; with Robert “Scoop” Jackson), which details the beginnings of hip-hop in New York City. His early life and that of fellow hip-hop pioneers DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Caz are mythologized in the Netflix miniseries The Get Down (2016–17).

In 2002 the U.S. Library of Congress added the album The Message to the National Recording Registry, a list of audio recordings deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” In 2007 Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five became the first hip-hop act inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 2021.