# Ghostnotes: Music of the Unplayed - Hardcover

by **B+** (Author)

_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.

### Author Biography

Brian "B+" Cross is one of the most prominent music photographers working today. He has photographed more than one hundred album covers for artists such as Company Flow, Damian Marley, David Axelrod, DJ Shadow, Flying Lotus, Eazy-E, J Dilla, Jurassic 5, Madlib, Mos Def, and Q-Tip. Cross was the director of photography for the Academy Award-nominated documentary _Exit Through the Gift Shop_, and he has made several feature-length music films and many music videos. His photos have appeared in the _New York Times_, _Rolling Stone_, _Vibe_, the _Fader_, and the _Wire_.

B+ is an assistant professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego, and cofounder of Mochilla, a production house whose output includes feature-length music documentaries, music videos, music, and photography. A former student of award-winning author Mike Davis and photographer Allan Sekula, Cross was the photo editor of the music magazine _Wax Poetics_ from 2004 to 2010, and _Rap Pages_ from 1993 to 1998. Cross'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.

Writer, musician, and producer Greg Tate is a contributor to _Rolling Stone_, the _New York Times_, the _Washington Post_, _Artforum_, _Essence_, and _Vibe_. He is a former staff writer for the _Village Voice_, cofounder of the Black Rock Coalition, and author of four books, including _Flyboy 2: The Greg Tate Reader_. Tate has been a visiting professor in Africana studies at Brown University and in jazz studies at Columbia University.

Award-winning author Jeff Chang is executive director of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University and a contributor to the Nation, the _New York Times_, the _San Francisco Chronicle_, the _Believer_, _Mother Jones_, _Vibe_, and _Spin_, among other publications. Chang's first book _Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation_ won the 2005 American Book Award, and he was a 2008 USA Ford Fellow in Literature.

Writer and historian Dave Tompkins writes frequently about hip-hop and popular music. His work has appeared in _Vibe_, the _Village Voice_, the _Believer_, the _Wire_, _Grantland_, and _Wax Poetics_. His 2011 book _How to Wreck a Nice Beach: A Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop_ was called one of the greatest music books ever written by the _Los Angeles Times_.

**Number of Pages:** 336

**Dimensions:** 1.2 x 7.3 x 7.2 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** December 07, 2017

## Details

- **Price:** 45.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 45.00 USD | In stock |

## Images

- Ghostnotes: Music of the Unplayed - Hardcover

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