Looking for the Perfect Beat: Remixing and Reshaping Hip-Hop, Rock and Rhythms
By (Author) Arthur Baker
Faber & Faber
Faber & Faber
26th August 2025
22nd May 2025
Main
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Memoirs
History of music
781.649092
Hardback
480
Width 153mm, Height 234mm
Beginning his career as a club DJ and disco producer in the early-70s in his native Boston, Arthur Baker moved to New York City in 1981 and in the summer of 1982 produced one of the genre-defining early hip-hop tracks "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force. This began an illustrious career that has seen him work with artists including Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Al Green, Pet Shop Boys, Quincy Jones, New Order, New Edition, Hall & Oates, Neneh Cherry and Damon Albarn.
Looking for the Perfect Beat will tell Arthur's unique and inspiring story in his own words and features unheard stories about many of the world's best and most successful musicial figures, which together form a portrait of a man who has been quietly influencing the sound of popular music for over fifty years.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts on April 22, 1955, but more closely associated with New York, Arthur Baker is an American record producer and DJ best known for his work with hip hop artists like Afrika Bambaataa and Planet Patrol, as well as British group New Order. He lives in Miami.