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Fat Beats President Talks Closing Shop

Written by Tyler Hakes. Published: Thursday, September 2, 2010.

All good things must come to an end — we were just hoping that wouldn’t apply to the legendary record shop, Fat Beats. Following last week’s announcement of Fat Beats closing the doors of its two remaining retail operations in New York and Los Angeles, president and owner Joseph Abajian spoke with AOL’s The BoomBox about the lead-up to the decision and their future plans to return to retail.

“The reality is Fat Beats retail hasn’t really been the store that I’ve known in years,” said Abajian, claiming that they’ve been keeping Fat Beats on a form of life-support for the last three years as he developed the plans for his new retail location. “It’s not hurting me that we’re closing,” he said.

Albajian told The BoomBox that his future plans include a massive hip-hop retail location, which will feature a broader range of products and cultural elements. The new shop will offer records — the mainstay of Fat Beats for over a decade — but, also offer products geared toward graffiti artists and dancers, as well as extended book section and a hip-hop cultural museum. He didn’t say when or where the new location may spring up.

Albajian also talked about the “mom-and-pop” nature of Fat Beats, and what the shop’s closing means for independent artists that used to rely on stores like Fat Beats as a go-to for peddling their vinyl releases. “It’s very hard to have a small mom-and-pop store,” he said about having a physical location, but also said that their small-scale approach is still effective, citing their international distribution as proof of it’s success.

“There are less than before, but there’s new stores popping up all the time,” he said, seeming quite optimistic about the future of brick-and-mortar vinyl retail locations.

Fat Beats NY is scheduled to close up shop on Saturday, September 4, followed shortly by the closing of the Los Angeles location on September 17. In the meantime, there will be a grand finale of in-store performances and sale pricing. Fat Beats will continue it’s international distribution and record label arms, and continue to sell records through its website, FatBeats.com.

The final performance on Saturday is scheduled to have appearances by Sadat X (Brand Nubian), DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Just Blaze and Aljabian himself (DJ Jab).

Category: Culture