HIP-HOP BOOK: "Check the Technique" by Brian Coleman - Out Now!
RANDOM HOUSE/VILLARD RELEASES “EPIC” HIP-HOP BOOK ON JUNE 12
“CHECK THE TECHNIQUE: LINER NOTES FOR HIP-HOP JUNKIES” BY JOURNALIST BRIAN COLEMAN
FOLLOW-UP TO COLEMAN’S ACCLAIMED RAKIM TOLD ME FEATURES 36 CHAPTERS:
THE FUGEES, BEASTIE BOYS, DE LA SOUL, PUBLIC ENEMY, WU-TANG CLAN, THE ROOTS, A TRIBE CALLED QUEST, ERIC B & RAKIM, COMMON, MOBB DEEP, BLACK MOON, RUN-DMC AND TWO DOZEN MORE
“I definitely appreciate [Check the Technique]. It’s good to see somebody going in-depth in hip-hop, not just surface sh*t. I really do feel that this book is good for the history of hip-hop.”
– Ice Cube
"Coleman gets props for the exhaustive effort it took to interview the writers and producers of three dozen seminal hip-hop albums ... He captures hip-hop's spirit from the '80s to the mid-'90s, when inner-city kids discovered music through samples crammed into SP-1200 drum machines, learned the biz from shady contracts, and built their personae from their stage names up. Most admirably, Coleman sits back and lets these born storytellers talk. Grade: B+"
– Neil Drumming, Entertainment Weekly
“Check the Technique is a truly essential rap history… epic, enthralling and long-overdue…”
– Ronin Ro, author of Raising Hell and Have Gun Will Travel
Hip-hop fans from coast to coast have eagerly awaited the release of Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies (Villard / Random House), by veteran Boston-based music journalist Brian Coleman. For background and information, please visit: www.checkthetech.com or www.myspace.com/waxfacts.
Presenting never-before-told, behind-the-scenes histories ranging from influential ‘80s masterpieces De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising and Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back to ‘90s classics like the Fugees’ The Score and the Beastie Boys’ Check Your Head, the book’s approach is one that Coleman calls Invisible Liner Notes – retracing the story of an album step by step, in collaboration with the artists themselves. Weighing in at over 500 pages, the 36-chapter book includes lively, in-depth, provocative interviews with 75 artists, DJs, producers and industry insiders. All in all, 400 hip-hop songs are discussed and dissected, by the artists who made them.
As Coleman explains, “My goal with Check the Technique is to let people eavesdrop on some amazing conversations I’ve had with hip-hop legends over the years. To me, the most important thing about the book is that the facts, stories and opinions come from the artists themselves. Hip-hop artists have a certain image on video screens and in press-junket interviews, but Check the Technique does its best to strip all of that away and talk to these innovators as people, with respect and fan-fueled curiosity.”
Book release events are being planned in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco for the summer. For more information on Check the Technique, visit: www.checkthetech.com and www.randomhouse.com.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:
Brian Coleman is the author of Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies (Random House/Villard, 2007) and Rakim Told Me: Hip-Hop Wax Facts, Straight from the Original Artists (Wax Facts Press, 2005). Over the past decade he has written extensively about the hip-hop artform for publications such as: Scratch, URB, Wax Poetics, CMJ Weekly and Monthly, Complex, Boston Herald, Boston, New York and Philadelphia Metro Newspapers, Boston Phoenix, XXL and The Source. He has lived in Boston since 1988.
Full chapter listing for Check the Technique:
2 Live Crew As Nasty As They Wanna Be
Beastie Boys Check Your Head
Big Daddy Kane Long Live the Kane
Biz Markie Goin’ Off
Black Moon Enta Da Stage
Boogie Down Productions Criminal Minded
Brand Nubian One for All
Common Resurrection
Cypress Hill Cypress Hill
Das Efx Dead Serious
De La Soul 3 Feet High And Rising
Digable Planets Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space)
Digital Underground Sex Packets
EPMD Strictly Business
Eric B & Rakim Paid In Full
The Fugees The Score
Geto Boys We Can’t Be Stopped
Ice-T Power
Marley Marl In Control Volume 1
MC Lyte Lyte As A Rock
Mobb Deep The Infamous
M.O.P. Firing Squad
Onyx Bacdafucup
Pete Rock & CL Smooth Mecca & The Soul Brother
The Pharcyde Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde
Poor Righteous Teachers Holy Intellect
Public Enemy It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Redman Whut? Thee Album
The Roots Do You Want More??!!??
Run-DMC Raising Hell
Schoolly D Saturday Night: The Album
Slick Rick The Great Adventures of Slick Rick
Too $hort Life Is… Too $hort
A Tribe Called Quest The Low End Theory
Wu-Tang Clan Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers
X-Clan To the East, Blackwards
Retailers: for information or assistance regarding Check the Technique stocking/orders, please contact Random House customer service at 800-733-3000.
# # #
Hi-Rez JPEGs of book cover & author available at www.checkthetech.com.
Review copies of Check the Technique available.
stash magazine
RANDOM HOUSE/VILLARD RELEASES “EPIC” HIP-HOP BOOK ON JUNE 12
“CHECK THE TECHNIQUE: LINER NOTES FOR HIP-HOP JUNKIES” BY JOURNALIST BRIAN COLEMAN
FOLLOW-UP TO COLEMAN’S ACCLAIMED RAKIM TOLD ME FEATURES 36 CHAPTERS:
THE FUGEES, BEASTIE BOYS, DE LA SOUL, PUBLIC ENEMY, WU-TANG CLAN, THE ROOTS, A TRIBE CALLED QUEST, ERIC B & RAKIM, COMMON, MOBB DEEP, BLACK MOON, RUN-DMC AND TWO DOZEN MORE
“I definitely appreciate [Check the Technique]. It’s good to see somebody going in-depth in hip-hop, not just surface sh*t. I really do feel that this book is good for the history of hip-hop.”
– Ice Cube
"Coleman gets props for the exhaustive effort it took to interview the writers and producers of three dozen seminal hip-hop albums ... He captures hip-hop's spirit from the '80s to the mid-'90s, when inner-city kids discovered music through samples crammed into SP-1200 drum machines, learned the biz from shady contracts, and built their personae from their stage names up. Most admirably, Coleman sits back and lets these born storytellers talk. Grade: B+"
– Neil Drumming, Entertainment Weekly
“Check the Technique is a truly essential rap history… epic, enthralling and long-overdue…”
– Ronin Ro, author of Raising Hell and Have Gun Will Travel
Hip-hop fans from coast to coast have eagerly awaited the release of Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies (Villard / Random House), by veteran Boston-based music journalist Brian Coleman. For background and information, please visit: www.checkthetech.com or www.myspace.com/waxfacts.
Presenting never-before-told, behind-the-scenes histories ranging from influential ‘80s masterpieces De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising and Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back to ‘90s classics like the Fugees’ The Score and the Beastie Boys’ Check Your Head, the book’s approach is one that Coleman calls Invisible Liner Notes – retracing the story of an album step by step, in collaboration with the artists themselves. Weighing in at over 500 pages, the 36-chapter book includes lively, in-depth, provocative interviews with 75 artists, DJs, producers and industry insiders. All in all, 400 hip-hop songs are discussed and dissected, by the artists who made them.
As Coleman explains, “My goal with Check the Technique is to let people eavesdrop on some amazing conversations I’ve had with hip-hop legends over the years. To me, the most important thing about the book is that the facts, stories and opinions come from the artists themselves. Hip-hop artists have a certain image on video screens and in press-junket interviews, but Check the Technique does its best to strip all of that away and talk to these innovators as people, with respect and fan-fueled curiosity.”
Book release events are being planned in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco for the summer. For more information on Check the Technique, visit: www.checkthetech.com and www.randomhouse.com.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:
Brian Coleman is the author of Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies (Random House/Villard, 2007) and Rakim Told Me: Hip-Hop Wax Facts, Straight from the Original Artists (Wax Facts Press, 2005). Over the past decade he has written extensively about the hip-hop artform for publications such as: Scratch, URB, Wax Poetics, CMJ Weekly and Monthly, Complex, Boston Herald, Boston, New York and Philadelphia Metro Newspapers, Boston Phoenix, XXL and The Source. He has lived in Boston since 1988.
Full chapter listing for Check the Technique:
2 Live Crew As Nasty As They Wanna Be
Beastie Boys Check Your Head
Big Daddy Kane Long Live the Kane
Biz Markie Goin’ Off
Black Moon Enta Da Stage
Boogie Down Productions Criminal Minded
Brand Nubian One for All
Common Resurrection
Cypress Hill Cypress Hill
Das Efx Dead Serious
De La Soul 3 Feet High And Rising
Digable Planets Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space)
Digital Underground Sex Packets
EPMD Strictly Business
Eric B & Rakim Paid In Full
The Fugees The Score
Geto Boys We Can’t Be Stopped
Ice-T Power
Marley Marl In Control Volume 1
MC Lyte Lyte As A Rock
Mobb Deep The Infamous
M.O.P. Firing Squad
Onyx Bacdafucup
Pete Rock & CL Smooth Mecca & The Soul Brother
The Pharcyde Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde
Poor Righteous Teachers Holy Intellect
Public Enemy It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Redman Whut? Thee Album
The Roots Do You Want More??!!??
Run-DMC Raising Hell
Schoolly D Saturday Night: The Album
Slick Rick The Great Adventures of Slick Rick
Too $hort Life Is… Too $hort
A Tribe Called Quest The Low End Theory
Wu-Tang Clan Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers
X-Clan To the East, Blackwards
Retailers: for information or assistance regarding Check the Technique stocking/orders, please contact Random House customer service at 800-733-3000.
# # #
Hi-Rez JPEGs of book cover & author available at www.checkthetech.com.
Review copies of Check the Technique available.
stash magazine