Word: gangstas
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...from his tough realism: “Tryin’ to hold on a couple more years / tryin’ not to get blown away.” What starts out as steely-eyed fatalism turns into helpless desperation, a sentiment that gets echoed later on “Gangsta Bop.” Singing over a laid-back parody of every G-Unit beat, Akon starts out with a broken flow, giving the half line “you die quicker” room to sink in before he quietly says “Paramedics drive back slow...
...next month, the campaign won't look like the marketing for, say, the corporate thrillers of Joseph Finder. Funkmaster Flex, the hip-hop evangelist, is closer to the flavor. K'wan's reading audience is loyal--he has more than 400,000 books in print. But titles like Gangsta, Road Dawgz and his latest, Hood Rat, have captured an audience well outside St. Martin's usual purview. So instead of signings at Barnes & Noble, St. Martin's is planning giveaways and readings in barber shops and beauty salons. There will be ads on urban radio and an official Hood...
Street lit profiles the black underworld in graphic detail. Like gangsta rap, street lit often has thieves, pushers and prostitutes as protagonists. And like gangsta rap in its heyday, street lit is hot business. In an industry that considers sales of 20,000 copies of a typical novel a success, gritty street-lit authors like K'wan are routinely doubling that number...
Putting it in business terms, some street-lit authors have transferred their core competency to publishing from other sectors. Like drugs. K'wan was still selling marijuana at the point where his Gangsta started to fly off the shelves. He moved out of public housing in 2004--the same year he signed a book deal. But he didn't leave everything behind. "In the morning I load up my trunk and hit the streets," says K'wan. "It's the same as when I was on the block hustling, except it's a different product. I hit the street vendors...
...bought Lil’ Wayne’s “Tha Carter II” after being floored by his “Gangsta Grillz, Vol. 1” mixtape, and also out of curiosity as to whether he actually might be the best rapper alive, as he often proclaims. While he doesn’t have the technical skill to back up that claim, “Shooter”—bursting with simple but ultracharismatic swagger—shows that he just might be the best MC alive. Buried 16 songs deep into...