Grandmaster Flash Named Polar Music Prize Laureate, Awarded $100,000

By Jem Aswad

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Grandmaster Flash, classical violinist AnneSophie Mutter, and the Playing for Change music charity have been named the 2019 laureates for Sweden’s Polar Music Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious music awards. Along with the honor, each Laureate receives prize money of one million Swedish Kronor (approx. $110,000).

The Awards will be presented at a gala ceremony and banquet at Stockholm’s Grand Hôtel by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden on June 11 and will be broadcast live on Swedish national television.

Grandmaster Flash (legal name: Joseph Saddler), said: “It is such an honor, because a lot of times in our culture, what we do as DJs gets overlooked. So for these people to say, let’s give this to someone who doesn’t necessarily use a microphone as their gift…for me to be picked out of so many people, I am so, so deeply honored.”

Mutter said:”It is a huge honor to be in this illustrious group of musicians who have received the . I can’t wait to come to Stockholm and meet the other recipients.”

Whitney Kroenke, co-founder of the Playing for Change Foundation, said: “This is incredibly humbling and mind-blowing – we are ecstatic. We started the project so that musicians that would not otherwise be seen or heard, would have the chance to express themselves and be recognized.”

Flash — pictured above with LL Cool J (left) and producer/Chic cofounder Nile Rodgers — is one of the undisputed pioneers of hip-hop, emerging from the Bronx in the 1970s and creating, with the group the Furious Five (particularly rappers Melle Mel and Cowboy), some of the most influential songs of early hip-hop. While their early releases — such as the 1980 breakthrough “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel,” had a party vibe, the group quickly pivoted to address the social issues reflected in the early ‘70s records by Marvin Gaye and the Temptations, emerging in 1982 with “The Message,” arguably the first socially conscious hip-hop record. Other songs like the anti-drug “White Lines” followed, and while the group split not long after, Flash has continued to boggle minds with his turntable skills in the decades since: His Twitter profile boasts, with no exaggeration, “The first DJ to make the turntable a musical instrument.”

Four-time Grammy Award-winner has been active for more than 40 years and has played the world premieres of 26 works, and has had many pieces composed for her. The Playing For Change Foundation was founded in 2007 and has grown to 15 music programs around the world, with 2,000 young people attending its classes every week.

Marie Ledin, managing director of the Polar Music Prize, said: “We are delighted to honour three Laureates this year, only the second time we’ve done so in our 28 -year history. In Grandmaster Flash, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Playing For Change, we have three spectacular Laureates; we are all looking forward to welcoming them to Stockholm and paying tribute to their work and talent at the award ceremony on 11 June.”

The Polar Music Prize Award Committee is an independent 11-member Award Committee which selects the Laureates. The committee receives nominations from the public as well as from the International Music Council, the