“Birth of a Culture” Grandmaster Flash and Friends

Few artists have had as much impact on hip-hop culture as Grandmaster Flash. The best DJ at a time when DJs were the stars of the Bronx’s burgeoning hip-hop scene, Flash is responsible for technical and stylistic innovations that helped shape the culture in its infancy. His crew of MCs, The Furious Five, cut some of hip-hop’s most iconic records, including The Message, a hard-hitting dispatch of socio-political commentary that highlighted the inequalities plaguing their community. For this concert in the Bronx’s Crotona Park, Flash brings his friends for a homecoming show to celebrate their contributions to the birth of a hip-hop culture that has gone global yet is inexorably woven into the story of America.