Who Was The Earliest Known Turntablist
Music, specifically DJing, has been a part of my life since I was born. Thanks to my father and older brother, my childhood was filled with sounds of all kinds of music, including Celia Cruz and James Brown. Throughout the course of time I went from being a listener to a doer. I followed in my dad and brother’s footsteps and became a DJ. But since establishing the BROLIC ARMY DJ community a decade ago, I turned my love for music and DJing into a more scholarly pursuit because once I started actively teaching DJ art, I knew it was important to disseminate DJing’s history and not just its techniques to my students.
I prefaced this article with the above because I just want YOU to know that I KNOW what I’m talking about. With that said, during BLACK HISTORY MONTH I will pause to salute and reflect on the contributions the originators of DJing as we know it, made to the rich fabric that makes up our culture. What’s more, I’m going to do my best over the course of the next 4 weeks to honor Hip Hop, specifically DJing’s, unsung heroes. It’s time for us to switch things up, so to speak, and change the narrative from the generic names – Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash and GrandWizzard Theodore – to discussing DJs like Grand Mixer DST, who through their extraordinary skills changed the course of DJ history.
The term “Turntablist” is overused and misunderstood. Over the years it has become a blanket term used to describe DJs who Scratch, cueing a record playing on a turntable back and forth, but “Turntablism” revolves around so much more than that. A Turntablist in the true sense of the word covers a very complex range of musical abilities that go beyond coaxing the Ziggaziggazigga sound out of a piece of vinyl. To be truly considered a Turntablist, you’re not just replicating sound but THINKING IN SOUND. You must have the ability to produce music out of the turntables that you perceive internally and imagine first. You’re creating your own ideas like a composer would.
No DJ before Grand Mixer DST had the ear and artistic sensitivity to speak the language of music on turntables the way he did! As far as I’m concerned Grand Mixer DST, a former Breaker and drummer, is DJing’s first Turntablist, PERIOD!
Not only were his scratches faultless and precise in contrast to his contemporaries, DST has several “firsts” to his credit.
Grand Mixer DST was the first DJ to incorporate Wah Pedals with his scratches. He was the first to approach scratching with harmony and syncopation. None of us would be scratching the iconic “Fresh” if DST hadn’t introduced the sound on Herbie Hancock’s “Rock It”. What’s more, DST’s innovations like the “forward drag” (yes, DST incorporated “forward drag” scratches years before DJ Cash Money) are still imitated by “skratchers” today, they just don’t know it! And to top it off, Grand Mixer DST is the first DJ to win a Grammy Award.
To learn more about DST, open your smart phone’s browser and research his body of work. Songs like “Crazy Cuts” and “Megamix II: Why is it fresh?” or even live performances like the iconic Live at The Bronx River Centre in 1982 will help you realize all Turntablists stand on the shoulders of one man, Grand Mixer DST.
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