
SRK and Laurence King feature - Published in Serie B Magazine, 2008
A word of intro if you will. This feature appears in the November/December 2008 edition of Serie B magazine in the ‘visual arts’ section of the magazine, a first for me. The reason behind it was simple. I’ve known the two guys behind SRK for a few years now, and I’ve followed their work and growth as a ’studio’ both as a fan and friend I guess you could say. In 2007 they moved into book publishing, having primarily focused on video media before. That move was interesting to me for a variety of reasons, including their choice of subjects and their attempts at blending the book format/media with others. Thing is it wasn’t actually until I wrote this article, which looks at their publishing work and their publisher, Laurence King Publishing, that I came to think of what they were doing in a slightly different way. I won’t give anything away though, just read the article and hope you enjoy. For more on SRK, peep the excellent site, and look out for their dubstep documentary, Bassweight, coming soon. For LKP, check their site. The SRK books, Rack Gaki and Stickerbomb are both out now, available from LKP and most decent bookstores, and I can’t recommend them enough.
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A different kind of ‘studio’
I first met Ryo and Suridh, the two creative individuals behind Studio Rarekwai (SRK), nearly 4 years ago in London as I was doing research on Japanese turntablists. Both they and their early work, a documentary on hip hop culture in Japan called ‘Scratching the Surface: Japan,’ were instrumental in helping me understand more about hip hop in Japan and meet artists and labels that have led to a series of features (published in Serie B back in 06), podcasts and other works. SRK is an independent studio focused on promoting international music and culture through various media. Recently, they have moved into publishing, releasing a series of books with publishers Laurence King (LK) that show a real understanding of the versatility and depth that the medium allows and a talent for thinking out of the box.
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