Essential Mix

Product Description:

This is a continuous in-the-mix CD compiled and mixed by DJ Grandmaster Flash.

Compilation producer: Grandmaster Flash.

Recorded at Reddlite Studios, Staten Island, New York.

This is not a collection of classic Grandmaster Flash 12-inch jams from back in the day (try the essential MESSAGE FROM BEAT STREET for that) but Grandmaster Flash's own live mix of 16 classic dance tracks from the 1970s and '80s, combined on the master's own deck. It is a rather brilliant selection of tracks, from the pop fluff of Nu Shooz's "I Can't Wait" (containing possibly the coolest synth sound of the '80s) to acknowledged genre classics like Liquid Liquid's punk-funk milestone "Cavern" (the birthplace of the famous bass line from Flash's later hit "White Lines") and Indeep's "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life." Flash keeps the cutting and scratching to a minimum, preferring to let the songs groove on their own. This isn't a full-length display of bravura technique like the genre-defining masterpiece "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel," but as a suite of old-school dance-floor jams, it's pretty hard to beat.