Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies
“Check the Technique is a book that all producers and hip-hop fans must read. It really shows how these albums were made and it touches the music fiend in everyone.”
- DJ EVIL DEE of Black Moon / Da Beatminerz
Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies (Villard / Random House), by veteran Boston-based music journalist Brian Coleman.
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.”
Coleman’s self-published 2005 book, Rakim Told Me: Hip-Hop Wax Facts, Straight from the Original Artists, received worldwide praise from press, artists, industry insiders and around-the-way rap fans alike. “This is the hip-hop book of 2005″ - Jake Paine, AllHipHop.com. “Rock historiography is full of lore about the making of canonical albums, but there hasn’t been much like that for the rap world - until now.” - Michaelangelo Matos, VillageVoice.com. “Ounce for ounce, Rakim Told Me is one of the most intimate glances at the magic behind hip-hop that I’ve ever experienced.” - Chris Faraone, Boston’s Weekly Dig.
CHECK THE TECHNIQUE
Chapter Listings
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’
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
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
For more info check out www.checkthetech.com
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