Grandmaster Flowers
Grandmaster Flowers | |
|---|---|
 Grandmaster Flowers performing | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Jonathon Cameron Flowers |
| Born | February 13, 1954 |
| Origin | Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| Died | June 26, 1992 |
| Genres | Disco, hip hop, breaks, funk |
| Occupation | DJ |
| Years active | 1968–1992 |
Grandmaster Flowers (born Jonathon Cameron Flowers) was an American DJ from Brooklyn, New York. One of the earliest DJs to mix records together in sequence,[1][2] Flowers was one of the earliest pioneers of disco. Flowers was involved in the hip hop and funk scene and had a "formative influence" on hip hop DJs[3] such as Grandmaster Flash[4] and Afrika Bambaataa in the mid-1970s. Although respected by those he influenced, Flowers himself never attained the heights of his successors.
As he found his career fading due in part to competition from the younger up-and-coming DJs at the end of the 1970s, Flowers struggled with a drug dependency.[5]
Flowers died in 1992.
References
- ^ Abrams, Jonathan (3 October 2023). The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop. Crown. p. 6. ISBN 978-1-9848-2515-5.
- ^ Browne, P “The guide to United States popular culture” Popular Press, 2001. p.386
- ^ Shapiro, P “Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco” Macmillan, 2006
- ^ Price, E.G “Hip hop culture” ABC-CLIO, 2006. pp.25
- ^ Kalia, Ammar (22 July 2019). "Hip-hop horseman: Fab 5 Freddy gallops through Renaissance art". The Guardian. Retrieved 2019-07-22.