Hey, did you know that the book of the year for 2006 was a mini-comic and dropped while you were drunk and angry at your family (aka The Holidaze?)

Jim Mahfood’s extremely limited edition mini-comic ASK FOR JANICE is an astute illustrated history of one of the five most important albums of all time; PAUL’S BOUTIQUE by the Beastie Boys.  Food uses his unique style and inimitable voice to bring the reader inside the final salad days of the record industy as Hip Hop began its march towards market dominance.  Amazingly, this slim volume compresses a rollicking ride from the ludicrious money battles with Def Jam post LICENSED TO ILL to the never-ending party life that erupted in Silver Lake/Atwater/Echo Park in the den of the Dust Brothers, parties that stewed the beats that would become all-time legends.
 

Jim Mahfood’s conversational tone could lead one to believe that he has the inside track with one or many of the subjects of study, but everything he has written is born of research and a love of the work that transcends history.  The first half of the book is the soup-to-nuts tale of the creation of the album and the second half is an equally compelling song-by-song dissection of the album with each page providing fodder for a hundred bar arguements.  Being that there are only 200 of this signed and numbered work of genius available all hip hop heads would do well to grab one today because a decade from now none of us will be able to afford it and all the extant copies will be in the hands of Chris Rock.

Cheers,

Marz

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