“You can come from nothing,” Grandmaster Flash declares in the latest episode of Apple Music’s The Message. “You could make it from nowhere and have everything. And when I say that—meaning, when I invented this DJ technology—I did this with nothing. I come from the projects, 2730 Dewey Avenue in the Bronx. And behind the projects was this junkyard—burned-out cars, people threw away stereos, like jury-rigged until I put my sound system together.” To say that there would be no Apple Music’s The Message without Grandmaster Flash isn’t exactly hyperbole. The show, which hosts candid conversations with some of Black culture’s most informed public voices—is named after the game-changing track Flash released with his group The Furious Five back in 1982. The DJ is a pioneer whose work and innovations continue to guide the culture to this day. The fact that he can join Ebro for a conversation surrounding his role in hip-hop in the 50th year of the art form’s existence is a full-circle moment akin to Buzz Aldrin speaking with active astronauts. Grandmaster Flash also happens to be the inventor of the “Quick Mix Theory,” the technique where he would loop a break by going back and forth between two copies of the same record and cueing them from the same point. This is essentially the foundation of hip-hop beatmaking. To have pushed the boundaries of music-making as far as he did while still in his twenties, Flash would need a curiosity about both music and technology that far superseded the distractions of his neighborhood. Luckily for us, that’s exactly what drove him. “When I became a teenager, I didn't do the typical things that teenagers did,” Flash says. “Where you're going to the basketball court, chasing the honeys, smoking behind your parents' back and drinking—I was angry. I was angry with the way records were made. I said, at my mother's house parties, ‘Why is it when the drum break came, why did the booties move more?’ For me, it was like, why didn't the records have more of that? And that's where my beginning began.” For his The Message playlist, Grandmaster Flash curated a selection of songs from artists like Blondie, Bob James, and Dennis Coffey & The Detroit Guitar Band—sounds we’re more likely to recognize in their sampled incarnations than the original versions. For Flash himself, it’s a little simpler than that: “These are a few of the staples of hip-hop.”