And, He Gets Money With His Award…
“Your royal highness and excellences, I want to first say thank you for inviting our culture to this wonderful, wonderful gathering,” Flash starts his speech.
He told the audience of his childhood, reflecting on his “rebellious” beginnings in his house in South Bronx. Flash recalls that he was not allowed to touch his father’s vinyl records or the player. However, when his dad would go to work — after watching him operate it many times — Grandmaster Flash would do it anyway.
He says everyone in the house would warn him that dad was going to punish him [to put it lightly] once he got home. But, Flash continued to take his chances. “He was giving it to me every time I touched it,” he continues, “and every time he’d turn his back, I kept touching it.”
According to him, it came to a point in his curiosity, that he became “public enemy No.1” in the house when it came to “anything electrical.” He says that the issue normally arose because, anything he took apart to find out how it worked, he didn’t know how to put back together.
His mother eventually sent him to a vocational high school, and Flash learned necessary trades to further his projected career. He even tells the audience how he learned to calculate a turntable’s RPM. By the end of his speech, the auditorium was once-again standing and praising him for his accomplishments.
According to DJ Magazine, Flash also received prize money around $130,000. While it’s not $1.1 million like the actual Nobel Prize, as far as music is concerned, it is top-notch.
