 KRS-One | Talib Kweli  |
Melvin “Melle Mel” Glover is not a man who brags. The lead lyricist of the legendary hip hop group Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, now 48, just tells the unadulterated truth, no matter how brazen it sounds. But what else do you expect from a man regarded as the godfather of the modern-day MC, who helped rap evolve from its party origins with the revolutionary 1982 classic “The Message”? The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer—Flash & the Furious Five became the first hip hop act to be inducted into the prestigious hall in 2007—has a lot to say these days.
VIBE: One of the most interesting aspects to come out of our The Best Rapper Ever tournament is younger hip hop fans being exposed to the early greats like yourself. Can you give us an idea what it was like being a rap artist during the late ’70s and early ’80s?
Melle Mel: Getting a record deal wasn’t as easy as it is today. Record companies were not dealing with hip hop. They didn’t understand it as being something viable. There were only two companies back then that actually recorded hip hop—one was Enjoy, which was the minor leagues, and the other Sugar Hill Records, which was the major. If you did do a record it was very rare. Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five’s reputation preceded us, so we were able to get a deal. But it wasn’t like anyone could have gotten that same deal.
You’ve been called the first truly great lyricist. What were you thinking when you heard about the Sugar Hill Gang, a group that was not exactly respected early on as true MCs?
They were the reason why we recorded our first single “Superrapin’” in 1979. We just wanted to try to keep up with what the Sugar Hill Gang had put out then. Before the records, we were huge on a street level. The magnitude of what we started on the streets was more important than what we did on record. “Rapper’s Delight” was so big and the B Boys didn’t understand it because of Sugar Hill Gang’s skill level. We just wanted to do something that could elevate us to their level. “Superrappin’” wasn’t actually that record. But it contributed to our path to bring what we call real hip hop to the masses. Back then for the Sugar Hill Gang to be known as the world’s best rap group, when you had Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five out there and later groups like the Funky Four crew, we felt that that was a low blow to what we were doing.
But you would get that huge genre-changing record with “The Message.”
That’s true. You have to remember at that time, “Planet Rock” was the hot record that summer, so to hear a song that wasn’t a party record like “The Message”—which was so different than anything out at that time—nobody knew it was going to work. Originally the Sugar Hill Gang was supposed to do “The Message,” but they didn’t want to do it. To be frank, we didn’t either. It just boiled down to Ms. Sylvia Robinson [founder of legendary rap label Sugar Hill Records] who wanted to put the record out. She put all of her attention behind it. So we did “The Message” and to this day it’s thought of as the most important hip hop of all time.
Press Play to here "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five
So is it safe to say you are glad that you didn’t pass on it?
Who knew? And it’s almost 30 years old. That just showed the importance of having a real producer like Sylvia Robinson. She came up with the concept of it; she was the one that first heard the record and she knew “The Message” was great, but everybody else at the company was like, “We don’t know where she is going with this.”
While it may sound strange today given that the line between hip hop and R&B has blurred, talk about being the first rapper to have a cameo on a big R&B record—Chaka Kahn’s 1984 hit “I Feel For You.”
Chaka didn’t understand the significance of what hip hop was. The person that understood that was the producer of “I Feel For You”—Arif Mardin. He might have been 60 then, but he was the guy that wanted to put a rap on the record. They were looking for a rapper to actually do it and that was in 1984, so I had “White Lines” out then. I was honored to be on a song with Chaka Kahn. It was the song that put a stamp on her career. And I don’t think that’s the stamp she wanted. But “I Feel For You” was a milestone as far as for me. Being on a record with Chaka, and then a song that was written by Prince and then Stevie Wonder was on the same song? That was huge.
You mentioned “White Lines.” Was Flash actually a part of that record?
Actually Flash wasn’t on any of the records physically. We wrote him into all the songs. “White Lines” was just me and Waterbed Kev, and I thought that that would have been the record that, if the group would have stayed together, could have put us back into the driver’s seat. Because at that time Run-D.M.C. had came along. And then you had the LLs and the Whodinis and the Fat Boys.
That was the start of hip hop’s competitive nature on wax.
Yeah, it was really getting to the point where there were some big groups out there. So when I did “White Lines” the name Grandmaster Flash was just so strong that we had to take what we could from that notoriety, which became a household word. Sugar Hill Records couldn’t make records without the name Grandmaster. They couldn’t sell a record without it. That’s actually why I became Grandmaster Melle Mel.
In 2007 Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five became the first hip hop act to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Can you describe the feeling of going onstage to accept that honor?
I understand the importance of what we did. It was a huge moment for hip hop. But my whole thing was it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to perform the way we did if we didn’t stay together. If Flash is going to be Grandmaster Flash and just run around the world and DJ, then let him just go onstage and DJ so it won’t be no misconception on who’s who and what’s what.
Are you saying that Flash should have gone in separately from the Furious Five?
I think we did ourselves an injustice by misrepresenting exactly what the group was about at that time. Flash DJ’d on his own thing; we didn’t perform together like that back then. So, Let Flash DJ and then we go up afterward and do a show so people can understand what the mechanics of the group really was. When we performed at the [Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony] together, people thought that Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five was a group. It just so happens that Flash was the greatest DJ at that time and we were the best MCs. We should have been represented as who we were at that time: as Grandmaster Flash being the DJ and the Furious Five being a group. It would have worked out better for everyone involved than to have Flash take the lion’s share of the PR that came about because Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five were elected into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
What would you change about hip hop today?
I want to bring hip hop to maturity because it’s been so dumbed down to where it’s on a juvenile level. You have people that’s 30, 40, and almost 50 years old that loves hip hop but they don’t understand what’s going on now because it’s not for them. We have to make it okay to make hip hop for a mature audience that’s been ostracized. That’s why I’m making another album. Because a lot of gangsta and street rap got to the point where it didn’t even make sense. When you have a million guys talking about they are gangsters it looks strange.
In past interviews you have spoken about your plans to become a professional wrestler. Is that still something you are looking to do?
onWe are still trying to put the wrestling thing together. I just have to continue to get myself in wrestlers’ shape. I’m heavily into the fitness thing so I’m working on a fitness career; showing people in the urban area the importance of working out. We have a lot of things we are working on but the main thing I’m concentrating on is things that are outside the realm of hip hop. There’s more out there to conquer. We made all the milestones in hip hop. I’m going to put on a couple more pounds and when I see John Cena, even though I love the guy, I’m going to have to smack the taste out his mouth [laughs]. I’ll be in the WWE and take hip hop to yet another notch.
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