"Harlem World" is just over a month away from release and I'm so excited to have booked some really great author events where I'll be reading from the book and playing some epic music, and of course signing copies! I'll be at the Harvard COOP in Harvard Square, Cambridge MA 9/28/2023. See the flyer below: 

If you're interested in attending this event, please register here, we're expecting this to fill up so reserve your spot in advance! 

I'll also be speaking in my hometown Sharon (MA) Public Library September 21 and the Canton (MA) Public Library September 26. You can register early for those events as well! I'll continue to post an updated list as we add more events to the schedule! I'm looking forward to seeing you and talking talking hip hop!

Thank you so much to the team at Publisher's Weekly for this lovely review of "Harlem World" (releasing September 12, 2023). 


Harlem World: How Hip Hop’s Super Showdown Changed Music ForeverJonathan Mael. John Hopkins Univ, $26.95 (296p) ISBN 978-1-42144-688-2Journalist Mael chronicles hip-hop’s emergence in late 1970s and ’80s New York City in his rollicking debut. Focusing on a pivotal rap battle between the Cold Crush Brothers and the Fantastic Romantic Five on July 3, 1981, at the Harlem World club, Mael unpacks how lyrical flair, and such new techniques as record-scratching, elevated hip hop from the city’s streets to airwaves across the world. Groups like the two that faced off at Harlem World “weren’t mass-marketed and packaged by record companies to look a certain way or deliver a certain message. They were the message,” says Mael, and though the Fantastic Romantic Five took home the grand prize of $1,000 that night, the true “winners... were hip hop fans in general,” who witnessed the beginnings of what “remains a massive cultural force.” Based on interviews with some of hip-hop’s early players, who offer behind-the-scenes insight into the infamous battle, and contextualized by incisive discussions of demographic shifts in Harlem and the Bronx and other historical details, this gives welcome due to the underground culture and cast of characters that gave hip-hop its wild style. Readers curious about the genre’s roots will want to take it for a spin. (Sept.)

Check out a new edition of Time Trip on the Concert for Bangladesh here!

It's Friday, and that means there's a new edition of Time Trip! Check out the story of the Harvard Yale game in 1894 that nearly ruined football.

The Game that Nearly Killed Football.

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There's a new edition of "Time Trip" today! Please check it out: 
The Mona Lisa in America
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My first newsletter of the year has been sent out via Substack! 

Thomas Edison and the Electric Chair

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Hey all! Please consider signing up for my Substack page "Time Trip" where I'll be sharing the best and strangest! stories from American History. Click here to subscribe!

Before computers totally changed hip hop production, producers and DJs needed to be musical encyclopedias -- capable of pulling the most fleeting sounds (sometimes under a second) off of the most obscure records to make a sample which could eventually be rapped over to create a whole new song. In writing Harlem World  I've gotten a great education about some of the best songs in the 1980s to sample and create break beats from. Songs like Rocket In The Pocket, Square Biz, Love Rap, and the Big Beat were all popular and can be seen across old hip hop recordings. The process of figuring out which beats groups were using back then has been so enjoyable (and a bit frustrating) and it got me thinking about one of the most heated debates in hip hop: what is the best beat ever? 

This is a purely subjective question and there are so many contenders. I'm limiting my thoughts to beats made using primitive equipment like turntables, cassettes, or the SP 1200 sampler. Nothing made on Logic or Garageband. I thought about Nas's New York State of Mind and LL Cool J's I Can't Live Without My Radio. My mind went to the crazy Funkadelic sample used on De La Soul's Me, Myself, and I or the ear splitting frequencies of Public Enemy's Rebel Without a Pause but I tend to gravitate towards simplistic beats. And I love the piano. With that in mind, I present the greatest beat in hip hop history: The Bridge is Over by Boogie Down Productions (featuring KRS-ONE). 

Don't throw things at me. When you hear that piano breakdown and the da-da-da da da-da-da-da da da on top of the gritty style drums from the SP 1200, it's tasty. It makes someone like me, who can't rap a bar, want to start spitting heat. And the song is relevant to Harlem World!  It's been on my mind because it was an answer to a (wrongly) interpreted lyric from and MC Shan song that suggested Queens might have been the real birthplace of hip hop, rather than the Bronx. KRS-ONE wanted to make it clear where hip hop truly came from. The beat sounds nasty, tough, and raw and the piano sounds evil. Take a listen for yourself! And if you have a different beat in mind, let me hear it in the comment section!

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