The History of Scratching

Kool Herc's revolutionary technique set the course for the development of turntablism as an art form in significant ways. Most important, however, he develops a new form of DJing that does not consist of playing and mixing records one after the other (incidentally, the type of DJ that specializes in mixing is well-respected for his own set of unique skills, but this is still DJing in the traditional sense). Rather, Kool Herc originates the idea of creating a sequence for his own purposes, introducing the idea of the DJ as the "feature" of parties, whose performance on any given night would be examined critically by the crowd. However it was Grand Wizard Theodore, an apprentice of Flash, who accidentally isolated the most recognizable technique of turntablism: scratching. He put his hand on a record one day, to silence the music on the turntable while his mother was calling out to him and thus accidentally discovered the sound of scratching by moving the record back and forth under the stylus. Though Theodore discovered scratching, it was Flash who helped push the early concept and showcase it to the public, in his live shows and on recordings.

DJ Grand Mixer DXT is also credited with furthering the concept of scratching by practicing the rhythmic scratching of a record on one or more (usually two) turntables, using different velocities to alter the pitch of the note or sound on the recording (Alberts 2002). DXT appeared (as DST) on Herbie Hancock's hit song "Rockit."

Turntablism

Turntablism as a modern art form and musical practice has its roots within hip hop and hip hop culture of the early 1970s. Scratching was already widespread within hip hop by DJs and producers by the time turntablists started to appear.

The appearance of turntablists and the birth of turntablism was prompted by one major factor - the disappearance of the DJ in hip hop groups, on records and in live shows at the turn of the 1990s. This disappearance has been widely documented in books and documentaries (such as Black Noise and Scratch The Movie), and was linked to the increased use of DAT tapes and other studio techniques that would ultimately push the DJ further away from the original hip hop equation of the MC as the vocalist and the DJ as the music provider alongside the producer. This push and disappearance of the DJ meant that the practices of the DJ, such as scratching, went back underground and were cultivated and built upon by a generation of people who grew up with hip hop, DJs and scratching. By the mid-90s the disappearance of the DJ in hip hop had created a sub-culture which would come to be known as turntablism and which focused entirely on the DJ utilising his turntables and a mixer to manipulate sounds and create music. By pushing the practice of DJing away, hip hop created the grounds for this sub-culture to be birthed and evolve.