Thug Life Army

Ground breaking Hip-Hop / Rap legends Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were ignored for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

It was 25 years ago that the pop world met Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, the Bronx rap group whose landmark 1982 single, “The Message,” is considered by many to be as important to hip-hop as Bob Dylan going electric was to rock.

With its provocative chorus of “It’s a jungle out there sometimes/It makes me wonder how I keep from goin’ under,” the record was a penetrating look at the tension and despair of ghetto life. Overnight, it transformed rap from simply energetic party music to an art form that would go on to become the dominant sound of young America.

“The Message” was the main reason Grandmaster Flash was nominated for induction into the Rock Hall of Fame. But the group didn’t get enough votes in the balloting among the 1,000 record company executives, musicians and critics.

That left a void in Monday’s nearly four-hour ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria, and it should serve as a wake-up call.

“I’m shocked they weren’t inducted,” Public Enemy’s Chuck D said in an interview on the eve of the dinner. “There’s no way to overstate the importance of Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five. There were things Flash did with music and recordings, in terms of turntables and technology that I thought were inconceivable until he actually did them.”

What’s especially ironic about the failure to induct Grandmaster Flash is that the Hall of Fame needs desperately to embrace hip-hop to maintain its credibility and standards through the rest of this decade.

There is far more great hip-hop talent becoming eligible for induction over that period than there are great rock acts, unless someone thinks all those ‘80s MTV video acts, such as Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Wham! live up to standards. Not until the end of that decade, when Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails led a new infusion of energy into rock, did the genre regain a relevance to rival hip-hop.

Among the rap artists who should be inducted during their first year of eligibility: Public Enemy, Run-DMC, N.W.A, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and LL Cool J.

Run-DMC is a cinch because the trio from Queens was the first consistent hit maker in rap and its music, such as “Rock Box” and a remake of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” frequently reflected strong rock ‘n’ roll ties.

But they don’t become eligible until 2008 under Hall of Fame rules that say acts aren’t eligible until 25 years after their first recording - and it would be a serious error for the hall to wait that long to embrace hip-hop.

Joseph Simmons (Run of Run-DMC) agrees.

“I thought it was a done deal about Flash getting in,” Simmons said in an interview last week. “Maybe there are just some slow-moving people over there” at the Hall of Fame.

Because rock fans were slow in the ’80s to embrace hip-hop, some may still not think of the music in the rock tradition.

But rock has been the strongest over the years when it has been the most inclusive, and the Hall of Fame has recognized this by inducting the best from all of contemporary pop music: soul (Aretha Franklin), blues (Muddy Waters), country (Johnny Cash), reggae (Bob Marley).

Rock’s link to those various strains was spotlighted during Monday’s dinner as Rod Stewart warmly inducted R&B singer Percy Sledge; B.B. King and Eric Clapton teamed up to induct blues guitarist Buddy Guy; and Justin Timberlake praised the R&B vocal group the O’Jays.

Source