Theodore is the man who invented hip-hop scratching.

A development which some hold to be as important as the invention of the electric guitar, it was one of the happiest accidents in the history of music.

"I used to come home from school every day and play records. This one particular day my mum banged on the door yelling at me because the music was too loud," he says. "When she walked in 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'."

"I think many people were on the verge of discovering it back then but I happened to be the first. I always wanted to be different to other DJs. I kept perfecting my idea so that when I did it in front of an audience it would sound dope."

He was 13 years-old at the time. Theodore had become a protege of Grandmaster Flash, a friend of his brother, before he was even in his teens.

He would also go on to invent the "needle drop" DJ technique, release the cult single Can I Get A Soul Clap and appear in the classic snapshot of early hip-hop culture, Wild Style.

Modest and amiable, he nevertheless bristles at some of the changes hip-hop has gone through since its early days.

"A lot of guys wanna get into rap so they can make money. We got into it 'cos we loved it. Now it's mostly business.

Rappers don't realise a lot of them are role models. There are rappers who have never held a gun in their hand before, yet they still talk about gangster rap. That was all going on, people getting shot, selling drugs on the corner, but we were trying to get away from all that."

"What really pisses me off is that nobody knows their history. People need to learn where it came from to know where it's going."

The Nineties saw the pint-sized Bronx native receive the respect he was due, being inducted into the Technics Hall Of Fame in 1998. Appearances in the documentary Scratch and DJ spots with the Chemical Brothers followed.

He admires the modern turntablists who developed his innovations: "They have taken it to another level, transforming and crabs and all that."

While he hasn't kept up with such developments himself, Theodore remains a great live performer, often scratching and beat juggling blindfolded.

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