Dr. Dre has long cited 1981's "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels of Steel" as the song that made him want to become a DJ.

At last night's Black Music Collective Ceremony, Dre reiterated the song's influence on his career, detailing how it gave him musical direction.

“My musical journey started with me wanting to find something that I can be good at, simply so I can earn enough money to buy a decent pair of shoes,” he remembered. “The birth of Hip-Hop completely changed the course of my life. I heard mixing and scratching and couldn’t get enough of that sound. Once I got my hands on the turntables, I knew I found my wings, and I was determined to learn how to fly. It didn’t stop for me with scratching and mixing. I fell in love with the idea of manipulating sound, taking those different sounds and putting them together like a puzzle to make a song.”

Dre's description of the groundbreaking recording as a puzzle is precisely what the song sounded like to the many others who aspired to become DJ's after experiencing it. To those outside of New York's boroughs, "Adventures..." was their first introduction to scratching and mixing. It was the first time that we heard a record on a record. It was a mash-up of "Another One Bites The Dust" by Queen, Chic's "Good Times," Blondie's "Rapture," "8th Wonder" by The Sugar Hill Gang, and "The Birthday Party" by his own group, Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5.

Flash spoke with The Foundation about the iconic recording. "Sylvia [Robinson, Sugar Hill Records founder and CEO] encouraged the making of the record," he said. "I approached her many times about it. I just would drop it in her ear 'Sylvia can I make a cut record ?' After a while, we were coming off tour and she flew me & Melle Mel in and said let's do this record. She told me to pick the records that I wanted to use and we did it ."