Michael Franti and Rono Tse met each other clubbing in San Francisco. In 1986, Franti and Tse formed the band with Kevin Carnes, Andre Flores and Henry Flood. Troy Dixon joined later as a touring member.[1][2]
Franti and Tse would later form The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. They reworked the Beatnigs song "Television" to become "Television, The Drug of the Nation" for the new group. Carnes would later form Broun Fellinis.
The band's stage performance included the use of power tools such as a rotary saw and grinder on a metal bar to create industrial noise and pyrotechnics.[10] Their sound included poetry and elements of african drumming.[11] They were described in The Rough Guide to Rock as "a kind of avant-garde industrial jazz poets collective".[12]
The single "Television" was reissued by Alternative Tentacles in 2002, and the album was planned for a CD re-release while made available on iTunes and other digital retailers.[citation needed]
According to KQED, Beatnigs' and Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy's influence can be heard in artists such as JPEGMAFIA and Death Grips.[1]
^Watrous, P. (1998) Rock From the Beatnigs, New York TimesNovember 13, 1988
^Columnist, John Zelazny, Time Out Music (2018-11-08). "Michael Franti stays human". Aspen Daily News. Retrieved 2023-12-15.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^The Rough Guide to Rock, Peter Buckle, ed. Rough Guides (2003) ISBN1-84353-105-4
