Like some beguiling, Bronx-bred and wind-driven Ponce de Leon, he set sail into uncharted territory. The land he stumbled upon was dingy and rank with the sweat of the restless. It was at once beautiful and decadent. It was bursting at its ripe underbelly with energy and soul. It was the Garden of Eden and the Book of Revelations. It was an unnamed oasis soon to be christened Hip-Hop.

This virgin continent needed a worthy leader. Indeed, it needed a King, a Pharaoh, a President. It needed a Grandmaster. This land called Hip-Hop needed Grandmaster Flash. The renegade explorer had finally found his ground.

It is more than a great honor that the Grandmaster has welcomed the outside world to his prosperous continent. It is even more of an honor to receive His Reverence as a guest in a rollicking land of desperate refugees.

With much honor and deep gratitude, as previously announced by Hip-Hop Ambassador Jimmy the Pit Bull, Grandmaster Flash will grace the stage of Belly Up Aspen on Saturday, May 17. The invitation to attend is open only to those alive who breath oxygen. The stodgy fuss-budgets and mindless creeps too self-involved to have a good time need not attend. Buy a ticket but don’t spoil the fun of everyone else for the sake of accepting a cell phone call from Haggis the Skin Felcher from whom you’ve just spent a king’s ransom for a ferret pelt coat and a hand-sewn swamp rat clutch.

The adventures of Grandmaster Flash began when he was a young child: “There were only two places in the house where we weren’t allowed to go: the living room where the stereo was and the closet where my dad kept his records. So when I heard the door slam shut in the morning, the first thing I would do was run to that closet and pull out some records, then go play them on the stereo in the living room,” he says.

It wasn’t always a successful deception though. “He would beat the (bleep) out of me,” says The Grandmaster. “I would try to put the records back exactly where I found them. But he knew better. I swear man, he would beat the (bleep) out of me.”

Fortunately the regular beatings he received were not a deterrent to his curiosity. He soon began his own record collection and started spinning them at parties in the Bronx. Before long he stumbled upon a new way to manipulate sounds on vinyl by using a mixer between two turntables and, in short, a legend was born.

In the late 1970s Flash recruited five local rappers to spice up his act and they soon began calling themselves Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. The group was quickly signed to the groundbreaking label Sugar Hill Records and the rest is hip-hop history.

Grandmaster Flash has been so influential to the world of music that he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. To date he is the only deejay to ever receive the honor. “At first I really didn’t know if I wanted to go in, you know? It all seemed kind corporate from the outside ... I was skeptical. I actually got the call three years earlier and they were like ‘We’re thinking about electing you to the Hall of Fame’ but it didn’t happen. Then the next year the same thing happened. Then last year I got a call and they said ‘You’ve been elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’ and I was like what the (bleep). Is this a (bleepin’) crank caller? But they’ve been really cool, really good to me.”

Currently, Grandmaster Flash is putting the finishing touches on both a new album and an autobiography. The disc, which will be released toward the end of the year is what he calls a “give back to the joy that the world has given me.”

The book he insists is “one of the most fearful things” he’s done in his life. “I had to share all my skeletons. I had to tell people my imperfections. I had to tell about having everything I ever wanted and then losing it and living on the street.”

Grandmaster Flash the DJ will forever be known as an Explorer of Worlds both musical and social. After more than 30 years in the business he is at the top of his game. Come take a ride with the Master on his Grand Adventure.

hood@aspendailynews.com