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Legions of Boom

Filipino American Mobile DJ Crews in the San Francisco Bay Area

Oliver Wang

$55.25

Paperback

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English
Duke University Press
05 May 2015
Armed with speakers, turntables, light systems, and records, Filipino American mobile DJ crews, such as Ultimate Creations, Spintronix, and Images, Inc., rocked dance floors throughout the San Francisco Bay Area from the late 1970s through the mid-1990s. In Legions of Boom noted music and pop culture writer and scholar Oliver Wang chronicles this remarkable scene that eventually became the cradle for turntablism. These crews, which were instrumental in helping to create and unify the Bay Area's Filipino American community, gave young men opportunities to assert their masculinity and gain social status. While crews regularly spun records for school dances, weddings, birthdays, or garage parties, the scene's centerpieces were showcases-or multi-crew performances-which drew crowds of hundreds, or even thousands. By the mid-1990s the scene was in decline, as single DJs became popular, recruitment to crews fell off, and aspiring scratch DJs branched off into their own scene. As the training ground for a generation of DJs, including DJ Q-Bert, Shortkut, and Mix Master Mike, the mobile scene left an indelible mark on its community that eventually grew to have a global impact.

By:  
Imprint:   Duke University Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 229mm,  Width: 152mm,  Spine: 12mm
Weight:   340g
ISBN:   9780822358909
ISBN 10:   0822358905
Series:   Refiguring American Music
Pages:   232
Publication Date:  
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Primary
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Oliver Wang is Associate Professor of Sociology at California State University, Long Beach. He is the editor of Classic Material: The Hip-Hop Album Guide and has written for NPR, Vibe, Wax Poetics, the Los Angeles Times, the Oakland Tribune, and the Village Voice, amongst others.

Reviews for Legions of Boom: Filipino American Mobile DJ Crews in the San Francisco Bay Area

Wang's account strikes a careful balance between oral history and analysis, grounded in ethnography while also working to interpret and elaborate the significance of the story. [W]ith an annotated oral history at its core, Legions Of Boom is centred on the words of the scene's participants and Wang's insightful perspectives as a scholar, a journalist and a DJ. --Wayne Marshall The Wire (06/01/2015)


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