The inaugural edition of an annual series by OTB founders Dax-Devlon Ross and Derek Beres, this first volume of A Staircase of Words features numerous essays by the two writers. Centered around two main essays written after a 12-mile journey down New York’s Broadway, the authors pen their thoughts on music, politics, cinema, social equality and a host of other topics. To read more click here.

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Since publication in June 2005, Global Beat Fusion is considered the book to define the emerging mythology being created by international music. Featuring candid and close-up interviews with Krishna Das, Cheb i Sabbah, Bill Laswell, Ojos de Brujo, Karsh Kale and many more, this important work is the definitive source for the most important musical movement of the 21st century. As NPR stated, "Global Beat Fusion: The History of the Future of Music is not a book about music alone. It’s about a growing worldwide community that’s searching for shared experience without politics or corporate involvement. And it could fill many different slots on the bookshelf." To read more click here.

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Sound Against Flame is an insightful and inquisitive look inside two emerging cultural ideas gripping the modern American consciousness: yoga and atheism. While seemingly opposed in numerous contexts, author/yoga instructor Derek Beres uncovers a common foundation as startling as it is revelatory to practitioners of any, or no, faith. To read more click here.

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Photojournalist Derek Beres spent one month on the road documenting Musica Fresca, a Latin music tour featuring Yerba Buena, Voltio, Akwid and Radio Mundial. Hired by Yahoo!Telemundo to keep a daily online record of 15 national dates, Beres went from blogging the most ambitious Hispanic tour ever produced in America to uncovering the behind-the-scenes follies of greed and deception. Tangled Web is an eye-opening, informative and honest journey through the modern music industry, and how by weaving through the pitfalls of industry devotion to the arts reigns supreme. To read more click here.

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The Best of Intentions is the timeless story of the soul searcher striving to reconcile past with present, theory with practice. It interrogates the promises of opportunity and unmasks the perils of upward mobility; pits our undying hunger for spiritual connectedness against our insatiable thirst for worldly validation. Most of all, it explores the individual’s fight to live with integrity in a confusing world devoid of easy answers. To read more click here.

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America is an idealistic nation. Dreams are realized here. Cultural plurality is celebrated here. Freedom is cherished here. But America is also a place where all those who seek to fulfill the promise of opportunity aren’t embraced equally; where prejudice has been institutionalized, codified and thereby legitimized; where the freedoms that mark a democratic society have been stripped from far too many for there not to be an outcry of injustice. This is the contradiction of America itself—what draws us to love and loathe the nation, drives us to seek refuge either within (assimilation) or at a distance (separation) and caused us to embrace the Dream or dwell on the Nightmare. For more info click here.

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Throughout history underdogs have always spirited the most authentic, audacious and original art of their day. In the process they’ve spawned movements forever altering the creative landscape. NYC hip-hop artist Creature (among many others) whose voices, visions and spirit canvas the pages of The Underdog’s Manifesto, are without question continuing that tradition. To read more click here.

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