Grandmaster Caz & 'The Founding Fathers' Explain Hip-Hop's Roots

The Founding Fathers of Hip-Hop have come together to explain exactly where the genre came from.

On Thursday, March 2, iHeart Media released the debut episode of iHeartRadio Presents: 50 Years of Hip-Hop podcast hosted by Fab 5 Freddy. In the episode appropriately titled "The Founding Fathers," pioneers tell the story of how Hip-Hop culture began to take shape in New York City thanks in part to influential music from the 1960’s and the impact of the Disco era in the early 1970’s. The first guest to speak on rap's early beginnings is Grandmaster Caz, a DJ, songwriter and rapper who was a member of the groundbreaking rap group the Cold Crush Brothers.

Caz gives fans a glimpse into his introduction to music in the 1960s, which includes timeless hits from The Temptations, Diana Ross, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and James Brown. In addition to other Top 40 artists that played on the radio at the time, Caz was influenced by an array of sounds from Pop to R&B/Soul

Later on, we hear from Grand Wizzard Theodore, an innovative DJ who's credited as the inventor of the scratching method. Grandmaster Flash also explains how he became one of the first artists to master the art of mixing, cutting and scratching while Grand Mixer DXT relives the moment when he became the first to use turntables as musical instrument in the early 1980s. These pioneers, along with DJ Kool Herc and others, also introduced ‘the break,' which became the key DJ style that helped create the blueprint for Rap music.

The deep dive into Hip-Hop history arrives in celebration of the influential genre's 50th anniversary, which occurs on August 11. Look out for more installments of iHeartRadio Presents: 50 Years of Hip-Hop coming soon.