Essential Cuts is a budget compilation album by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released on CD in 2005.

[2] Although titled to Grandmaster Flash alone, it does not contain any tracks from Flash's later Elektra Records albums and mainly features tracks from The Message era.

The fold-out booklet contains a brief but accurate history of the band and track-by-track commentary by Ian McCann.

As is common with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five compilation releases minor mistakes have been made regarding some song titles (see notes).

[3]