Who invented vinyl scratching?

Many record collectors would wince at the thought of scratching their precious vinyl, recoiling at the image of that impossibly fine needle being dragged back and forth over their most prized possessions. But many DJs, particularly those working in the realm of hip-hop, frequent the practice of record scratching. They use it to punctuate their set, to fade between tracks, and simply to add intrigue.

The sound of record scratching is now one that is familiar to music fans worldwide. It can be found all over hip-hop music of every era, from ‘Can I Kick It?’ by A Tribe Called Quest to the catalogue of MF Doom. But the art of record scratching has extended beyond the genre that spawned it into the work of trip-hoppers like Portishead and Massive Attack, as well as huge pop hits.

Record scratching has become a staple in modern music and modern DJing, entertaining audiences for decades now, and it seems that the practice is here to stay. But where exactly did record scratching come from, and who was the first person to discover it? The answer to that question is actually a pre-teen born in The Bronx, New York.

So, who invented vinyl scratching? 

The first recorded instance of record scratching was by a DJ called Theodore Livingston, also known as Grand Wizzard Theodore. Theodore was scratching records before he even hit his teenage years. While at school, he spent his evenings playing and experimenting with music at home, readying his DJ career. On one occasion around 1975, he stumbled upon an intriguing new sound. 

“I used to come home from school every day and play records,” Theodore remembered during a chat with 101.1 The WIZ, “This one particular day, my mother banged on the door yelling at me because the music was too loud.” Although it may have seemed like an annoyance to him at the time, this interruption would actually result in one of the most influential sounds in hip-hop. 

When his mother knocked on the door and told him to turn the tunes down, Theodore accidentally scratched the record, not knowing that he was about to invent one of the most iconic sounds in hip-hop. “When she walked in,” he remembered. “I still had my hand on the record that was playing and I kind of moved it back and forth. When she left, I was like ‘Yo! That sounded kind of cool. I better experiment with that.’”

Theodore listened back to the sound and decided to include it in other songs going forward, and thus scratching was born. Interestingly, Theodore was also connected to Grandmaster Flash, who was close friends with his brother, Mean Gene. They began mentoring the budding DJ, though he discovered scratching before they did.

Flash would soon become closely associated with record scratching, too, employing the technique on tracks like ‘The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel’ and ‘The Message’. And the technique would soon find its way across hip-hop as a whole, becoming integral to the sound of the genre, and even pushing far beyond it.

Theodore didn’t grow up to quite as much fame and acclaim as his mentor, Flash, who invented his own fair share of DJ essentials, including slipmats. However, Theodore’s work from when he was just 12 years old still lives on in modern hip-hop and DJ culture, punctuating sets with that familiar scratching sound.

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