A diplomatically titled
Rhino compilation,
Message from Beat Street: The Best of Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel & the Furious Five is a no-brainer collection featuring the absolute best of the group's four years on
Sugar Hill -- from the national breakout with 1980's
"Freedom" to the beginning of the end,
Melle Mel & the Furious Five's
rap-on-film classic,
"Beat Street." Backed by the party-pleasing productions of
Joey and
Sylvia Robinson plus gorgeous grooves courtesy of the
Sugar Hill house band (guitarist
Skip McDonald, bassist
Doug Wimbish, drummer
Keith LeBlanc),
Grandmaster Flash and company recorded most of
rap's popular classics from the early '80s, providing a crucial bridge from the street-party aesthetic of the late '70s to
Run-D.M.C.'s mid-'80s breakout. Rappers
Melle Mel,
Scorpio,
Cowboy,
Kid Creole, and
Raheem were tied to
old school delivery (carefully and slowly phrased), but they did it better than all the others and had the DJ as well as the tracks to match.
Flash & the Five also had the most diversity of any other early
rap group, encompassing the refreshing
Furious Five/
Sugarhill Gang collaboration
"Showdown" (more a posse track than a battle), a gritty street-level snapshot of modern life (
rap's all-time classic
"The Message"), and the vocoder paranoia of
"Scorpio." Rhino could've done a better job without too much trouble (simply swapping an ineffective new Megamix with the DJ landmark
"Adventures on the Wheels of Steel" would go a long way), but
Message from Beat Street is still the best introduction to the authors of
old school's greatest hits. ~ John Bush
