Grand Wizzard Theodore (Theodore Livingstone)

Grand Wizzard Theodore (Theodore Livingstone) was born March 5, 1963 in Harlem and raised in the Bronx, New York on Boston Road and 168^th Street.[1] His older brothers Claudio and “Mean”Gene were part of a Hip Hop duo called the L-Brothers and introduced him to scratching even before he reached adolescence.[2] DJ Grandmaster Flash, a frequent collaborator with the L-Brothers, took notice of his talent and would occasionally set up a milk crate to let young Theodore DJ when he performed in public parks.[3] His name Grand Wizard Theodore came from the MC group The Fantastic Five because of the way he mixed Hip Hop and R&B records quickly back and forth.[4]

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One summer day in 1975, Theodore was playing “Passport” and The Incredible Bongo Band’s “Bongo Rock” in his bedroom.[5] [6] While practicing on his turntables at the age of 12 or 13, Grand Wizzard Theodore remembers inventing scratching.[7] “I came home and played my music too loud, and my mom was banging on the door. When she opened the door, I turned the music down, but the music was still playing in my headphones. I had turned down the speakers, but I was still holding the record and moving it back and forth listening in my headphones. I thought ‘This really (sounded) like something….interjecting another record with another record.’ And as time went by, I experimented with it trying other records, and soon it became scratching.”[8]

After developing his new technique, he amazed the crowd on August 18, 1977 when he debuted scratching and the needle drop at an outdoor party.[9] The needle drop is performed when a “DJ sets a record spinning, then drops the stylus on the turntable at the exact point where he wants playback to begin without previously cuing up the record.”[10] He also “built on (Grandmaster) Flash ‘s work by taking the scratching sound made when the records were cued and adding a rhythm that made the turntable into a percussion instrument the DJ could ‘play.’”[11] He also emulated Flash’s style of acrobatic spin moves by using his elbows and feet to scratch records.[12]

By the 1980s, Grand Wizzard Theodore was well-known in New York for being one of the best DJs, and he released “Can I Get a Soul Clap” with the Fantastic Five off of the label Tuff City.[13] He and the group also appeared in 1983’s Hip Hop film Wild Style along with their rivals the Cold Crush Brothers.[14] He also appeared on the Wild Style soundtrack with scratch mixes “Military Cut” and “Subway Theme” and instrumental “Gangbusters.”[15]

Grand Wizzard Theodore began spinning records internationally in the 1990s and was inducted into the Technics DJ Hall of Fame in 1998.[16] He has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from both the International Turntablists Federation and “Back to Mecca.”[17] He also appeared at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Hip Hop conference in 1999.[18] When the exhibit traveled to the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2000, he taught a DJ Master Class with the up-and-coming DJ Perseus.[19] He appeared in the 2001 documentary Scratch about the origins of Hip hop and also appeared on the movie’s soundtrack.[20]

Origin:

Born in Harlem, raised in the South Bronx, NY

Style/Claim to Fame:

Invented the scratch
Credited with pioneering the needle drop
Took the scratching sound made when the records were cued and added a rhythm that made the turntable into a percussion instrument the DJ could “play”