Thug Life Army

Hip-Hop fans mark your calendars for the June 12, 2007 release of Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies by veteran music journalist Brian Coleman.

Presenting never-before-told, behind-the-scenes histories ranging from influential ‘80s hip hop and rap 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 hip hop and rap artists, DJs, producers and industry insiders. [See below for full chapter list]

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. My hope is that readers will walk away feeling that it was one of the most entertaining music guidebooks they’ve ever read.”

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. “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, Weekly Dig. “If you like reading about hip-hop as much as you like listening to it, there are few better literary companions to the music.” – Spine Magazine (UK).

Coleman is planning book release events in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco for the summer of 2007. For more information on Check the Technique, visit: www.waxfacts.com and www.randomhouse.com.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:

Brian Coleman is the author of Check the Technique (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, Complex, CMJ Weekly and Monthly, Boston Herald, Boston Metro, Boston Phoenix, Source, XXL and NY Press. He has lived in Boston since 1988.