Last Bastion Of "Music In A Physical Form" To Close Next Month

“It was definitely a landmark for the underground movement of the ’90s. Young people who’ve never touched wax probably don’t know what the closing of a store like this means… It just means that we’re heading to a place where music won’t exist in a physical form anymore.”
–Rap producer DJ Spinna on the news that Fat Beats, a store on the corner of 6th Ave. and 8th Street in Manhattan that specialized in vinyl records and served a hip-hop community that might best be described as the opposite of this, will close its doors next month after 16 years in operation. (The LA outpost will also shutter.) It will be a sad day for many old people. I always appreciated that they spelled “fat” with an F. And if it can in fact be said that music ever existed in a physical form, it was at Fat Beats.