Curtis Brown (born April 18, 1960), better known by the stage names Grandmaster Caz and Casanova Fly, is an American rapper, songwriter, and DJ. He was a member of the hip hop group The Cold Crush Brothers from 1979 to the mid-1980s. He is best known as the (uncredited) main writer of Big Bank Hank's raps on the seminal 1979 hip hop single by The Sugarhill Gang, "Rapper's Delight".
He worked with Debra Harris as a celebrity tour guide for Hush Hip Hop Tours, a hip-hop cultural sightseeing tour company in New York City, and is a board member of The Kennedy Center's Hip-Hop Council, Hip-Hop Ambassador and board member for Windows of HipHop and CEO of GMC Entertainment Inc.[3]
Caz first encountered rap in 1974 at a Kool Herc block party.[4] Shortly after, he teamed with DJ Disco Wiz under the name Casanova Fly to form one of the first DJ crews, Mighty Force. Caz was also the first rapper to perform both DJ (record) and MC (vocal) duties.[5][6][7]
Grandmaster Caz is generally acknowledged to have been the main writer of the lyrics of Big Bank Hank (real name Henry Lee Jackson) on the 1979 The Sugarhill Gang single "Rapper's Delight", which sold around 5 million copies[9] and introduced hip hop music to the mainstream.[10] Jackson had been Grandmaster Caz's manager, and was working at a pizza parlor when music executive Sylvia Robinson overheard him rapping Grandmaster Caz's lyrics, and asked him to be part of the group she was forming, The Sugarhill Gang. Jackson who had never rapped before had Caz's lyric notebook which he lifted directly from for the song. This is most evident in his opening verse, when, instead of introducing himself as Big Bank Hank, he raps, "Check it out, I'm the C-A-S-A-, N-O-V-A, and the rest is F-L-Y". (Casanova Fly is Grandmaster Caz's alternate moniker.)[11] Big Bank Hank's verse in the song about seducing Lois Lane away from Superman was also lifted from Caz's notebook.[12]
In 2000, Caz released the song "MC Delight", a parody of "Rapper's Delight" which told his side of the story.[11] In the song, Caz states about giving away his lyrics, "I gave it to him thinking/ Check books, credit cards, more money/ Than a sucker could ever spend/ But he never gave a nigga a god damn dime/ And was supposed to be my friend".[13]
In 2008, he was one of the participants at the Cornell University Library conference on Hip Hop.[15]
In November 2021, Grandmaster Caz and female MC Sha-Rock started co-hosting the show That's The Joint on the Sirius XM channel Rock The Bells Radio, run by LL Cool J. The show runs Monday through Friday, 10 AM to 1 PM.
At present Grandmaster Caz is working with and for A&E, MTV, Paramount, De La Calle, and the History Channel.[citation needed]
In 1998, Caz was listed #11 out of Blaze Magazine's Top 50 MCs of all Time. He was also inducted into the Technics DJ Hall of Fame in 1999.[citation needed]
In June 2008, Grandmaster Caz was inducted into the Bronx Walk of Fame.[16] A street plaque bearing his name is now on permanent display on the Grand Concourse, the most famous thoroughfare in the Bronx.
In episode 3 of part 2 of The Get Down, while listening to "Rapper's Delight" on the radio, The Get Down Brothers' member, Boo, tells his date that Grandmaster Caz is the real writer of the line and says that Caz is the "nicest MC around".
