Turntablism
Also known as scratch DJing, skratching
A Bronx-born DJ art form that treats the turntable as an instrument, turntablism moved from hip-hop party technique into a formalized performance and battle culture in the 1990s.
Origins and context
Hip-hop DJ culture in the Bronx gave the style its earliest techniques and audience, and later turntablists turned those routines into a named performance practice.
The sound
Instrument palette
The voices and tools most associated with this sound.
- Turntable
- DJ mixer
- Crossfader
- Vinyl record
History
The roots of turntablism sit inside hip-hop’s earliest DJ culture in the Bronx, where DJs were already stretching records, looping breaks, and building new rhythms from existing songs. Grandmaster Flash is widely credited with helping define the technical language of the form through cutting, back-spinning, and phasing, and his 1981 recording “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” is often cited as a landmark for recorded scratching. The word itself came into wider use in the 1990s, when DJs and crews began pushing the craft beyond party mixing toward performance, battle routines, and self-conscious musical composition. By then, artists such as DJ Qbert and the Invisibl Skratch Piklz were presenting scratching as a serious performance art, with dedicated showcases, albums, and tool records built around technique rather than conventional songwriting.
Notable artists
- GFGrandmaster Flash
- DQDJ Qbert
- MMMix Master Mike
- ISInvisibl Skratch Piklz
Essential listening
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Explore connected genres
Sources and further reading
- Spotify
Grandmaster Flash developed key techniques including cutting, back-spinning, and phasing.
- Apple Music
The recording "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" is a landmark early scratching recording.
- The Art Of Turntablism
- About Thud Rumble
- Hip-Hop (R)Evolutions