The legend Grandmaster Flash is a hip-hop DJ pioneer and star of Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five. Flash is the first hip-hop artist to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, paving the way for hip-hop icons. Grandmaster Flash will be in residence at the University of Buffalo this fall as he is to direct the next Working Artists Lab this semester of hip-hop-inspired programming presented by the university’s Arts Collaboratory.
“The residency at UB gives me a chance to tell hip-hop’s whole story. The sights. The sounds. The places and the moments,” Grandmaster Flash told the Niagra Gazette. “It’s important that we get this history right. For the next generation to take music and art in new directions, they have to know where that music and art came from, who made it and how.”
Grandmaster Flash will join UB students via video conferencing before his three-day in-person residency, which begins Sept. 30. He will host a private session with the students and local hip-hop legends. Flash will give a hip-hop masterclass on Oct. 1 will follow, as will a session on Oct. 2 where students will share their work with him. A complete and more detailed schedule is available online.
“This is a momentous occasion for UB,” says Bronwyn Keenan, director of UB’s Arts Collaboratory. Over the course of several weeks, students from UB and Buffalo State College, along with Buffalo-area artists, will have an opportunity to engage with one of the most important artists and innovators of our time – and he is making an ongoing commitment to UB.”