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Education stands as one of Patta’s core pillars. The reality is that Black and POC perspectives are often excluded from mainstream narratives, yet they are vital to understanding history, culture, and identity. Reading is power, and access to diverse stories is essential. That’s why Patta is launching Patta Open Source bookshelves, a literary collection curated by Team Patta in collaboration with Athenaeum Bookstore, that centers the voices of those too often overlooked.We’re not just putting books on a shelf. Patta Open Source is making room for stories that challenge the way we think and push us to see the world from different perspectives. Some books will spark curiosity, others will raise difficult questions, and many will offer inspiration. But most importantly, they will all contribute to a broader conversation, one that breaks old narratives and builds new ones. Each One, Teach One.Express YourselfTourmaline : The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. JohnsonMarsha P. Johnson was more than an icon of the Stonewall uprising — she was a living symbol of radical joy, resistance, and humanity. In The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson, artist and activist Tourmaline brings her story to life with equal parts tenderness and fire. Johnson’s voice, so often drowned out in official histories, is finally given the space it deserves. This is not a conventional biography, but a poetic tribute to what it means to live freely in a world that keeps denying that right. Tourmaline writes with rhythm and warmth, celebrating both the flamboyant and the fragile. The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what it truly means to be yourself — in full color, against the current.Must Read Ta-Nehisi Coates: The MessageWith The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates returns as the clear, uncompromising voice of contemporary Black consciousness. Best known for Between the World and Me, Coates here explores what remains of hope, truth, and community in a world so often divided. His writing is lucid and lyrical, probing what it means to stay human amid noise and regression. Coates traces the legacy of hip-hop, politics, and spirituality as forces of both resistance and beauty. This is no manifesto but a meditation — fierce and tender at once. The Message is a book to read and to feel: a call for dignity, nuance, and resilience.His StorySudhir Hazareesingh: Daring to be Free: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic WorldSudhir Hazareesingh reminds us that the history of slavery is not only a story of oppression, but also of defiance. In Daring to Be Free, he recounts the courage and rebellion of the enslaved across the Atlantic world — from Haiti to Brazil, from Cuba to the United States. He shows that freedom was never granted, only fought for. Drawing on testimonies, songs, and diaries, Hazareesingh weaves a powerful tapestry of human dignity. This book is a tribute to the men and women who revealed the foundations of the modern world — not as victims, but as thinkers, dreamers, and revolutionaries. Daring to Be Free is history that breathes, glows, and inspires.Non-Fiction Be The Real Hip HopRobin Givhan: Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil AblohIn Make It Ours, Pulitzer-winning journalist Robin Givhan pays tribute to the incomparable Virgil Abloh — designer, visionary, and bridge-builder between street culture and haute couture. Givhan traces how Abloh rewrote fashion’s codes and cracked open the doors of white institutions. This is no glossy portrait but a sharp, affectionate essay on creativity as liberation. She frames Abloh’s legacy as an act of cultural reclamation: from Off-White to Louis Vuitton, from Chicago to Paris. Make It Ours is a celebration of Black brilliance — and of the right to define beauty on one’s own terms.Brand New FunkZadie Smith: Dead and AliveZadie Smith is at her best when she writes from the inside out — about art, life, and the fragile boundaries between them. In Dead and Alive, she explores the fine line between creation and destruction, freedom and fear, identity and form. Smith reflects on the artist’s role in times of crisis, and on the constant reinvention of self in a shifting world. Her prose is, as ever, supple, witty, and layered — attuned to both rhythm and thought. Dead and Alive is a meditation on surviving with style, on the moral duty of beauty, and on how art keeps the human heart in motion.Music PleaseAnnie Zaleski: Queens of Disco In Queens of Disco, Annie Zaleski revives the glittering history of disco — this time through the women who made it legendary. Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Grace Jones: their voices became the soundtrack of freedom, sensuality, and pride. Zaleski writes with energy and insight, but most of all with love for the music and the subcultures it nurtured — from the ballroom scene to New York’s queer clubs. Queens of Disco shows that disco, often dismissed as kitsch, was in fact a revolution: a stage for expression, a celebration of identity. A sparkling, rhythmic tribute to the power of beat and self-liberation.The Patta Open Source Bookshelf will appear as a recurring feature in the Patta Magazine, showcasing a curated selection of titles available at our bookshelf at Athenaeum store in Amsterdam.

Practitioner, educator, DJ, and researcher, Femke Dekker (also known as Loma Doom) has long been immersed in both sound and education. Across lecture halls, archives, festivals, art galleries, independent radio stations, and dance floors, she orbits a central question: What if listening itself were an artistic practice? What might unfold when listening becomes method, medium, and material?Open Field Listening takes shape around these ideas. Presented as a collaboration between Page Not Found—an artist-run platform dedicated to publishing and experimental practices—and the record label Osàre! Editions, the text originates from Dekker’s graduation thesis for the Master Education in Arts at the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam. There, she honed her skills as a pedagogue, inviting students into improvisational jam sessions, radio-making, and exercises that activate new modes of attention and a heightened sense of sonic curiosity.Drawing on the work of scholars and artists—most notably Pauline Oliveros—Dekker approaches listening as a call to action: a way of tuning into one’s surroundings, one’s body, and the urgencies that contour our political and social worlds. She emphasizes the radical potential of reorienting knowledge toward collective attunement: the we rather than the I (or the eye). Inspired by Oliveros’s concept of Deep Listening—a way of expanding awareness through focused, embodied perception—Dekker acknowledges the composer as a foundational feminist figure whose insights continue to reverberate through the classroom, the studio, and beyond.

This issue highlights Wiley, Universally hailed as “the Godfather  of Grime”, the London-born MC and producer Wiley has played a  massively influential role in bringing the UK Grime movement to a  worldwide stage throughout his prolific and storied career marked  by the extreme highs and lows of violence, controversy, and global  stardom.Emerging from London’s culture of pirate radio stations and  garage music during the early 2000’s, Wiley followed in the  footsteps of his father - a reggae musician who introduced him  to hip-hop at a young age - and began producing instrumentals  mixing the regional influences of dancehall and jungle music,  adding verses to his tracks with a wide variety of collaborators  including members of his original grime crew Roll Deep, formed in  2001.As grime became a global phenomenon during the 2010’s, Wiley  remained at the forefront of the genre, pushing the movement  forward through his innovative work ethic and a consistent ethos  of collaboration. Today, his enduring legacy is present within the  sound he helped pioneer, becoming a foundational influence on a  new generation of stars across the scope of UK rap and drill music.This issue also highlights M Huncho, Bel Cobain, AJ Tracey, TOX DDS, Amy  Leung, Dynamite, Victory Lap Radio, D Double E, Potter Payper, Charlie Birch,  Karim B, E Pellici, Tim & Barry. Living Proof, the London Issue is available now at Patta London.

The expansion of rap music during the 1990s into the mid 2000s is widely regarded as a defining period in the development of rap music, often described as its “golden era” due to the scale of innovation and originality achieved during this time. The rise of regional styles from Brooklyn, New York to Long Beach, California gave different cities their own sound and point of view, moving rap beyond a single center and creating a genre that was relatable to people from urban environments all over the world. From groups like the Wu-Tang Clan, M.O.P, The Lox and Dipset to artists like Nas, Shyne, DMX and DJ Kay Slay; Clay Patrick McBride’s unique time spent with the artists during a developmental phase in their careers has been collected in “Triumph: Icons of Rap”. Showcasing nearly two decades of photographs of the most iconic rappers earlier in their lives.Living Proof has worked with Clay Patrick McBride to release a book on photographs documenting the golden era of rap’s defining artists during the creation of their most pivotal works, drawn from sessions Clay spent with the artists in their early years and magazine campaigns from the era’s best. The book includes test polaroids, original contact sheets and never before seen collages from the artists personal scrap book; as well hand written thank you letters from the talent. Living Proof - Triumph available now at Patta London.

Photography by Sam Davies and Dennis EluyefaTo kick off the week, Patta London linked up with Eddie Gold to celebrate the release of Mouth Full of Gold. We hosted a book signing at our London chapter, bringing together an international community to welcome Eddie back the right way. Shoutout Mirchi for keeping the drinks flowing. Watch this space London, we will be back with more events soon. 

Big moment this Tuesday. For those who know, you know. Eddie Plein is a Surinamese-born pioneer who helped shape grillz culture in hip-hop long before it hit the mainstream. A real originator — not a follower.He’s blessed some of the greats, including LL Cool J and Eric B. & Rakim — laying down influence that still echoes today. Now he’s pulling up to Patta London for the official launch of his book, bringing his story and legacy with him.He’ll be in-store, meeting everyone and signing copies — so this is more than just a launch, it’s a rare chance to connect with someone who really built from the ground up.

Patta London is proud to finally welcome Living Proof to our shelves, featuring the legendary Boogie, a photographer who’s spent decades capturing the truth most people walk past.In NEW YORK IS MINE / I CAME AT THE PERFECT TIME, Boogie revisits his first decade behind the lens in New York City — 166 pages of unseen black-and-white work shot during one of the most defining periods for both the city and his career.Born Vladimir Milivojevich in Belgrade in 1970, Boogie grew up in the chaos of the nineties, where photography became a lifeline. From war-torn streets in Serbia to the raw corners of Brooklyn, his lens never flinched. He’s since become one of the most influential street photographers of our time — a documentarian of grit, honesty, and human reality. Living Proof shines a light on that legacy — and this issue sets the tone: uncompromising, unfiltered, and alive.“NEW YORK IS MINE / I CAME AT THE PERFECT TIME” is now available at Patta London.Step through, spend some time with it, and take home a piece of history.

This year, Patta and The Black Archives are joining forces, making hidden stories and history around Hip Hop and street culture visible. Patta was born out of a passion for Hip Hop, sneakers and street culture. The Black Archives is a unique historical archive for inspiring conversations, activities