Looking for the Perfect Beat

Looking for the Perfect Beat: Remixing and Reshaping Hip-Hop, Rock and Rhythms

For fifty years as DJ, producer and remixer, Arthur Baker has been at the pioneering forefront of hip-hop, rock, and electronic music. His unique and genre-defying sound can be heard on tracks by legendary artists like New Order, Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, the Rolling Stones, Al Green, Pet Shop Boys, Quincy Jones, New Edition, Hall & Oates, Neneh Cherry, Mogwai and Fleetwood Mac.

Starting as a club DJ and disco producer at the start of the seventies in his native Boston, Baker moved to New York City in 1981. Through his early disco and hip-hop productions, he came to the attention of the most influential names in a music industry at the height of its powers. This would begin a career that would take him from the sweaty dancefloors of NYC to late-night studio sessions with Bob Dylan and to his celebrated anti-apartheid album Sun City, created with Little Steven Van Zandt.

From the underground to the mainstream, Looking for the Perfect Beat is the unique story of an artist with a need to discover new sounds and new ways to move an audience — and who has influenced the sound of popular music for half a century.