Bedroom Beats & B-Sides: Instrumental Hip-Hop & Electronic Music at the Turn of the Century

by Laurent Fintoni

The first decades of the 21st century saw dramatic changes in the music industry as technology transformed creation, communication, and consumption. Amid this turmoil one change occurred relatively quietly, almost so-called bedroom producers, music makers raised on hip-hop and electronic music, went from anonymous, often unseen creators to artists in their own right.

In Bedroom Beats and B-sides, journalist Laurent Fintoni details the rise of a new generation of bedroom producers at the turn of the century through the stories of various instrumental hip-hop and electronic music scenes. From trip-hop, downtempo, and IDM to leftfield hip-hop, glitch, and beats, the book explores how these scenes acted as incubators for new ideas about composition and performance that are now taken for granted.

Combining social, cultural, and musical history with extensive research and over 100 interviews, the book tells the B-side stories of hip-hop and electronic music from the 1990s to the 2010s. Using the format of a beat tape, it explores the evolution of a modern beat culture from local scenes to global community via the diverse groups of idealists on the fringes who made it happen and the external forces that shaped their efforts.

Before the uniformity of streaming services, always-on social media, and online tutorials for everything, this is a portrait of independence and experimentation amid historical change. It's a story of obsession and dedication and how the fringes brought about a quiet musical revolution.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published September 4, 2020

Reviews

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laurent Fintoni's Bedroom Beats and B-Sides draws together seemingly disparate narratives of hip-hop and electronic music culture into a coherent patchwork, the edges of which extend far out into the distance, like the tendrils of a funky plant reaching right across the planet. Primarily focusing on the trans-Atlantic connection between the UK and USA, the book covers seminal artists, releases, labels and club nights - notably the likes of Warp Records, Mo Wax, Low End Theory and the Dilla/Madlib connection - drawing from 100+ interviews and guided by Fintoni's own experiences with the scenes and artists discussed. Each section in the book is headed by a track ID, so you can explore relevant musical examples as you read, and the footnotes are often illuminating. Fintoni generally does a good job of addressing sex/ism and race/ism both within the music industry as well as in the discourse around it, though when he makes the claim that, "At its root beat culture is Black and Brown and queer culture," he does little to account for queer influence on or contribution to the music. On the whole, this is a comprehensive work, covering over 20 years of music culture in surprising detail in just 350 pages, making it my favourite book yet from Velocity Press.

[Bruno Dias · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best and more profound look of the importance of beat culture I ever read

[Clicky Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book as the evolution of DIY music production interests me, and I don’t know a huge amount about the roots of hip-hop and interminglings with electronica. Unfortunately, even after reading this, I still feel the same way. There is no doubt that the book covers a huge amount, but a lot of it feels like it simply jumps from artist to artist, reeling off a list of facts - and there isn’t a single, unifying narrative thread you can hook onto. This is compounded by the use of album titles for different chapters, which didn’t clearly match up to any obvious differentiation or progression. When the book does occasionally shift to more of a narrative approach, it is far more enjoyable. Ultimately, while I learned some interesting things, and found a bunch of new artists to listen to, reading this felt like a bit of a slog to get through.

[Janne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Haven't seen anyone cover the subject elsewhere in such detail. However, with high expectations, the book was a bit of a letdown.

It took me months to get through the book because the chapters and stories were similar in their formula (like the other user mentioned here). And surely the women producers of bedroom beat culture would have deserved more pages innit. As broad as the scope was, there were no mentions of Scandinavian Skweee music which IMHO cannot be dismissed, having surfaced globally around the same time as "wonky" was labelled by journalists.

In the end, I was thinking maybe this book would work better as a series of RBMA (or such) in-depth articles with pictures, YouTube links for music and videos etc.

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the only if not the only book on the subject.

Very happy someone did it!

The tracklist is a very nice and unique touch!

Loved the more detail parts about madlib and dilla.

Would have enjoy more details on other artists and on social issues. Sometimes it felt like it was simply stated and nothing more.

Maybe the book suffered from it’s very big scope.

But hey! like i said.. not much to compare this to!

I feel this book could inspire many to explore more deeply some things mentioned in this book.

For the pioneer move: Bravo! Huge work

[Chris C · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Tour De Funk-Force

This read has lead me on an enjoyable journey. Took a while to read this one cause of all the listening i HAD to do. The story is in the beat.

[Lorenz · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone involved in beat music for 20 years this book told me wonderful and surprising anecdotes of familiar artists, fun dinner party facts (J Dillas tidy refrigerator). It also connects familiar dots (Thundercat was part of Sa-Ra). It's a bit like a chat with a good old friend who knows a lot about that music and has a lot to say about it.

[Dmitry Kurkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great attempt to put a map grid on variety of interconnected genres and scenes, some of which were previously overlooked, forgotten or simply ignored. NB: although written in English, this guide is far from being Anglocentric.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cemented the importance of hip hop in contemporary electronic music for me.

[Kieran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an amazing read. You can tell it was a true project of love for the author. I am constantly recommending it to everyone.