Raptology recommends:
The highly anticipated memoir from hip-hop icon Rick Ross chronicles his coming of age amid Miami’s crack epidemic, his star-studded controversies and his unstoppable rise to fame.
Rick Ross is an indomitable presence in the music industry, but few people know his full story. Now, for the first time, Ross offers a vivid, dramatic and unexpectedly candid account of his early childhood, his tumultuous adolescence and his dramatic ascendancy in the world of hip-hop.
Born William Leonard Roberts II, Ross grew up “across the bridge,” in a Miami at odds with the glitzy nightclubs and yachts of South Beach. In the aftermath of the 1980 race riots, he came of age at the height of the city’s crack epidemic. All the while he honed his musical talent, overcoming setback after setback until a song called “Hustlin’” changed his life forever.
From his first major label deal to the controversies, health scares, arrests and feuds he had to transcend along the way, Hurricanes is a revealing portrait of one of the biggest stars in the rap game and an intimate look at the birth of an artist.
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Gucci Mane has an extensive resume. As a founding father of trap music, Mane’s been carving out the rap genre since 2001 when he put out his first underground release: Str8 Drop Records Presents Gucci Mane La Flare. Since then, he has amassed a long list of musical achievements: dozens of mixtapes, singles, collaborations and eight studio albums.
But before all of that, he was Radric Davis, growing up in Atlanta and watching his dad hustle people on the streets for money.
“You know, he had all kinds of games and scams, like three card molly, shaking the pea, pigeon drop,” Gucci Mane tells NPR’s Ailsa Chang. “All of these are little scams that he learned — tricks of the trade that he learned in the streets.”
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Thirty plus years after his debut, Rakim invites readers to follow the leader into his literary universe Sweat The Technique: Revelations On A Creativity From A Lyrical Genius. Billed as “part memoir-part writing guide,” Ra goes behind the rhyme and explores the technique and inspiration behind his conceptual genius.
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Decoded is the autobiography and memoir of rapper Jay-Z, published by Random House and released November 16, 2010 on hardcover and November 1, 2011 on paperback. The book combines lyrics, their explanations, anecdotes, reflections, and autobiographical information. The book follows very rough chronological order, while switching from current stories to Jay-Z‘s story of growing up in the Marcy Projects. The autobiographical portion focuses on growing up in poverty which led to him to drug dealing during the crack epidemic, fights, and a need to share the hustlers story during the beginnings in rap. His reflections on those harsh times shaped who he is and how artists are shaped by such experiences.