Metal Lungies

(image)

Fat Beats, my favorite place in New York City that doesn’t involve food, will close its remaining locations in New York and Los Angeles next September, XXLmag.com reports.

I wrote about Fat Beats and the business of hip-hop vinyl last year. DJ Eclipse told me that hip-hop wasn’t part of the niche resurgence of vinyl, but it never occurred to me that Fat Beats might close. How could it? Like so many others, I looked at Fat Beats as the old friend I could see whenever I wanted. Fat Beats was a haven for people who live and breathe hip-hop. You walked in and MF Doom, Smif-n-Wessun, and Count Bass D watched you from their LPs on the walls.

Record collectors will mourn Fat Beats as the source of hard-to-find records. But I grew up on mp3s and immediate access to every song ever made. I will remember Fat Beats differently.

I’ll remember Fat Beats as the place where Tanya Morgan told me they follow my insignificant blog. Where I met underground artists like Homeboy Sandman, Magestik Legend, and Shawn Jackson who turned out to be amazing talents. Where People Under The Stairs performed for me and no more than a dozen others who had the will to trudge through the rain. Where artists waited on the sidewalk to force their CD into my hand in exchange for a few dollars. Where I got to tell Black Milk how crazy “Motown 25” is. Where I interviewed Blaq Poet while he swigged from a bottle.

Fat Beats was a place where you could surround yourself with music and people who love that music. No club or concert venue can ever take its place or duplicate its feeling.