The Best of Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel & The Furious Five

Album Review

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.