Ghostnotes: Music of the Unplayed - Hardcover

B+

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1477313907 ISBN 13: 9781477313909

Publisher: University of Texas Press, 2017

Synopsis

Ghostnotes: Music of the Unplayed is an extended photo essay with more than two hundred images that represent a mid-career retrospective of B+’s photography of hip-hop music and its influences. Taking its name from the unplayed sounds that exist between beats in a rhythm, the book creates a visual music, putting photos next to each other to evoke unseen images and create new histories. Like a DJ seamlessly overlapping and entangling disparate musics, Cross brings together LA Black Arts poetry and Jamaican dub, Brazilian samba and Ethiopian jazz, Cuban timba and Colombian cumbia. He links vendors of rare vinyl with iconic studio wizards, ranging from J Dilla and Brian Wilson to Leon Ware and George Clinton, David Axelrod to Shuggie Otis, Bill Withers to Ras Kass, Biggie Smalls to Timmy Thomas, DJ Shadow to Eugene McDaniels, and DJ Quik to Madlib. In this unique photographic mix tape, an extraordinary web of associations becomes apparent, revealing connections among people, cultures, and their creations.

About this title

About the Author

Brian “B+” Cross is an assistant professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California San Diego and cofounder of Mochilla Production Company, whose output includes feature-length music documentaries, music videos, advertising, music, and photography. A former student of award-winning author Mike Davis, B+ was the photo editor of the music magazine Wax Poetics from 2004 to 2010, and he has worked in hip-hop culture as a photographer and filmmaker for over twenty years. B+’s 1993 book on the LA hip-hop scene, It’s Not About a Salary, was on “best book of the year” lists for Rolling Stone and NME magazines, and Vibe named it one of the top ten hip-hop books of all time.

Review

"A magnificent retrospective of the world’s preeminent hip-hop/rap photographer." (City Lights Books 2018-09-14)

"...an entrancing mid-career retrospective. The featured photos swerve from the journalistic to the impressionistic, capturing expansive stories in a single frame and combining unlikely source material to blur personal and political histories together in unexpected ways." (Red Bull Music Academy 2017-10-24)

"With a design that juxtaposes two photos side-by-side on each spread, Ghostnotes creates a dialogue in much the same way as when you’re flicking through vinyl in a record shop." (Vinyl Factory 2018-01-22)

"Ghostnotes quickly gets you familiar with Cross' impact on hip-hop culture, his travels and fascination with record stores from all around the world." (Eugene Weekly, Photography Books of the Year 2018-12-13)

"The photos...are arranged thematically like songs mixed together on a well-made mixtape. Cross's documentary style photos connect music, visual art and radical politics." (KCET 2018-12-20)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1477313907
• ISBN 13: 9781477313909
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336