With these two evolutions to music, Hip-Hop DJs has emerged. With the pioneer GrandWizzard Theodore, by all accounts, invented the idea of scratching a record by moving it back and forth. The story has been told that one day he was in his room listening to music and his mother told him to turn his music down, he accidentally "rubbed" the record back and forth creating an interesting sound. He later that day introduce that concept among his DJ friends. It was still in the early 70's when Grand Master Flash had first pioneered the concept of "rubbing" a record to enhance a DJ's segue into a new track (mixing), but Theodore gave the backward sound a percussive, rhythmic personality. In the late '70s, he was a DJ with the L Brothers (along with his brother Mean Gene who played with Grand Master Flash). "He then started the Fantastic Five (a.k.a. Fantastic Freaks) a crew who figures large in the history of "old-school" hip-hop" (SCRATCH).
Formerly known as GrandMixer D.ST, DXT was one of the original Zulu Nation DJs in the South Bronx during the late '70s and early '80s. He has a great role into the history of scratching on turntables. In 1984, DXT performed the solo scratches on Herbie Hancock's #1 hit instrumental song "Rockit." That particular performance was seen by millions on The Grammy Awards Show and Saturday Night Live. It was the spark that lit the imagination of an entire generation of scratch DJs. His scratching on "Rockit" was so musical and beyond the scope of what anyone had done with a turntable before that, as DJ Babu says in SCRATCH, he really was "the first turntablist.".
"Some Hip-Hop DJ's get so fast and slick in their scratching, cutting and general creating that the turntable becomes an instrument all on its own" (SCRATCH). The DJs who do this are called turntablists; their art is called turntablism.
Although turntablism itself is a relatively new word the skills at its heart are as ancient as Hip-Hop itself.