
Dressed in a neon yellow snap-back cap and white jeans, Grandmaster Flash lives up to his name. "This is the lost art of hip-hop," he yells over the sound system during his set's well-practised opening sermon. "This is a style I developed in 1971. It's the world standard of how DJs play today," he continues, launching into a chunky breakbeat twinned with Green Onions by Booker T, the first of 60-odd rapid-fire mashups tonight.
For Flash, a pioneer of turntable techniques such as scratching, this "lost art" means to be eclectic. Hip-hop is his sponge that soaks up jazz, pop, funk, disco, R&B and rock hits and he bounces through them with more backspins than a pro golfer. The effect 41 years later, however, is like that of a Bronx block party fuelled by Lambrini. He warms up with Rock Around the Clock, Pharrell's Happy and even some UB40, then cuts in the familiar thwack of Billy Squier's The Big Beat (also the beat of Fix Up, Look Sharp by Dizzee Rascal) laced with Donna Summer. It eventually ramps up to chart hip-hop fodder and even a dancehall segment, where Major Lazer's EDM mangle Mashup the Dance gets an airing. A student disco would have been cheaper.
Since Flash's day, DJs have learned to build sets, to take their fans "on a journey". Being at his gig is like sitting next to the uncle who won't budge from his armchair, flipping the channel every five seconds. "I'm testing you," he hollers, as he threatens to play some proto-electro, before seguing into Montell Jordan's 1995 hit This Is How We Do It. It gets huge cheers but it seems as ad-libbed as Top Gear banter. The most thrilling part of the evening comes when he attempts to mix his 1982 anthem The Message into the Bee Gee's How Deep Is Your Love? and the crowd's excitable whoops turn into groans. At least he tried to do something different for once.
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