Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating music using turntables (record players) and a DJ mixer. The word was coined around 1994 to describe the difference between a DJ who just plays records, and one who performs by touching and moving the records, stylus and mixer to manipulate sound – referred to as the turntablist.

Turntablism has come along way since its origins in the mid seventies. Most believe that it was born out of hip hop music where it originated in the South Bronx. It is closely related to Jamaican DJ music, and the direct connection is DJ Kool Herc (Clive Campbell), who moved as a kid from Jamaica in 1967.

The art form began for Herc when he switched from one turntable to the other with the same song, to extend the instrumental break, which is known as a break beat. He then got a hold of Coke La Rock and Clark Kent (who were arguably the first proper rappers) to throw out some phrases over these breaks - thus the birth of Rap music. One of the first DJ’s to progress from Kool Herc’s break beat technique was Grandmaster Flash (Joseph Saddler).

He started off by following Herc around, trying to figure out how he was doing what he was doing and what records he was playing. Flash’s father used to fix radios, and eventually he made his own mixer. There is absolutely no doubt that (on the long run) Flash took Turntablism to new and almost ridiculous heights. A clear example of this is heard on the “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” and if you haven’t heard it, you ought to get it!!! To think that this track was produced in the late seventies using nothing but pure skill is enormously credible. Flash was also the inventor of the “Clock Theory” which I will explain in detail later on. Today you will see almost every turntablist apply.

This brings us to the actual inventor of scratching - Grand Wizard Theodore (Theodore Livingston). He was the brother of a DJ partner of Grandmaster Flash. The story goes that his mother was banging down his door and walked into his room as he was working on his turntables. He was startled by her sudden entrance and quickly put his fingers on the record to stop it from turning – whilst listening to his mother he was moving the record back and forth and realized that it sounded good.

“I wanted to get the same groove I was on, so I was like back and forth, back and forth and I said to myself, “hey that sounds good” so I started practicing it and it became a scratch”

And thus the “Baby Scratch’ was invented !