Slipmat

A slipmat is a circular piece of slippery cloth or synthetic materials disk jockeys place on the turntable platter instead of the traditional rubber mat.

The slipmat was invented by hip-hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash to improve its sound and move the vinyl counterclockwise without causing too much drag and too much friction.

In a Washington Post interview, he recalls “My mother was a seamstress so I knew different types of materials,” he continues.

“So I ran home and got a copy of my album and I bought just enough felt to cut out two round circles the same size as a 33’ LP and—when my mother wasn't looking—I turned the iron all the way up high and I used my mother's spray starch.

I sprayed it until this limp piece of felt became—I called it a wafer, like what you get in church at Easter.