The New Beats Redux

The New Beats, first published in 1994, was one of the first books to seriously approach and document the hip-hop phenomenon. It takes you from its origins in the South Bronx in the ‘70s, to the hip-hop of today, now in its nostalgia phase.

The author recreates and dramatizes hip hop's formational era as The New Beats provides an actual living archive gained through good old original research. When FernandoI was working on the book, there was no Internet, no Google, and a dearth of writing on the rap, so I had to go directly to the sources—people like Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash, who could be considered the “founding fathers” of the artform.

Since he wrote the book during a very formative era for hip-hop—the early ‘90s—he spoke to more than 100 artists who were active during this era, many of whom are considered legendary today. The New Beats presents an important document of a time before the art form broke into the mainstream, when it was still honest and unadulterated. The book represents a crucial piece of musicology and sociology, placing rap firmly within that great legacy of African American music, which includes such contributions as blues, jazz, soul, and rock.