Author: Matt Sullivan
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063036827
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
“Brilliantly audacious…written with the profundity of a sage baller and the acuity of a seasoned journalist.”—Kiese Laymon, New York Times bestselling author of Heavy An award-winning journalist's behind-the-scenes account from the epicenter of sports, social justice, and coronavirus, Can't Knock the Hustle is a lasting chronicle of the historic 2019-2020 NBA season, by way of the notorious Brooklyn Nets and basketball's renaissance as a cultural force beyond the game. The Nets were already the most intriguing startup in the NBA: a team of influencers, entrepreneurs and activists, starring the controversial Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. But this dynasty-in-the-making got disrupted by the unforeseen. One tweet launched an international scandal, pitting the team's Chinese owner and the league's commissioner against its players and LeBron James. The sudden death of Kobe Bryant, after making his final public appearance in Brooklyn, sent shockwaves through a turbulent season. Then came the unimaginable. A global pandemic and a new civil-rights movement put basketball's trend-setting status to the ultimate test, as business and culture followed the lead of the NBA and its empowered stars. No team intersected with the extremes of 2020 quite like the Brooklyn Nets, and Matt Sullivan had a courtside view. Can't Knock the Hustle crosses from on the court, where underdogs confront A-listers like Jay-Z and James Harden, to off the court, as players march through the streets of Brooklyn, provoke Donald Trump at the White House, and boycott the NBA's bubble experiment in Disney World. Hundreds of interviews—with Hall-of-Famers, All-Stars, executives, coaches and power-brokers across the world—provide a backdrop of the NBA's impact on social media, race, politics, health, fashion, fame and fandom, for a portrait of a time when sports brought us back together again, like never before.
Can't Knock the Hustle
Author: Matt Sullivan
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063036827
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
“Brilliantly audacious…written with the profundity of a sage baller and the acuity of a seasoned journalist.”—Kiese Laymon, New York Times bestselling author of Heavy An award-winning journalist's behind-the-scenes account from the epicenter of sports, social justice, and coronavirus, Can't Knock the Hustle is a lasting chronicle of the historic 2019-2020 NBA season, by way of the notorious Brooklyn Nets and basketball's renaissance as a cultural force beyond the game. The Nets were already the most intriguing startup in the NBA: a team of influencers, entrepreneurs and activists, starring the controversial Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. But this dynasty-in-the-making got disrupted by the unforeseen. One tweet launched an international scandal, pitting the team's Chinese owner and the league's commissioner against its players and LeBron James. The sudden death of Kobe Bryant, after making his final public appearance in Brooklyn, sent shockwaves through a turbulent season. Then came the unimaginable. A global pandemic and a new civil-rights movement put basketball's trend-setting status to the ultimate test, as business and culture followed the lead of the NBA and its empowered stars. No team intersected with the extremes of 2020 quite like the Brooklyn Nets, and Matt Sullivan had a courtside view. Can't Knock the Hustle crosses from on the court, where underdogs confront A-listers like Jay-Z and James Harden, to off the court, as players march through the streets of Brooklyn, provoke Donald Trump at the White House, and boycott the NBA's bubble experiment in Disney World. Hundreds of interviews—with Hall-of-Famers, All-Stars, executives, coaches and power-brokers across the world—provide a backdrop of the NBA's impact on social media, race, politics, health, fashion, fame and fandom, for a portrait of a time when sports brought us back together again, like never before.
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063036827
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
“Brilliantly audacious…written with the profundity of a sage baller and the acuity of a seasoned journalist.”—Kiese Laymon, New York Times bestselling author of Heavy An award-winning journalist's behind-the-scenes account from the epicenter of sports, social justice, and coronavirus, Can't Knock the Hustle is a lasting chronicle of the historic 2019-2020 NBA season, by way of the notorious Brooklyn Nets and basketball's renaissance as a cultural force beyond the game. The Nets were already the most intriguing startup in the NBA: a team of influencers, entrepreneurs and activists, starring the controversial Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. But this dynasty-in-the-making got disrupted by the unforeseen. One tweet launched an international scandal, pitting the team's Chinese owner and the league's commissioner against its players and LeBron James. The sudden death of Kobe Bryant, after making his final public appearance in Brooklyn, sent shockwaves through a turbulent season. Then came the unimaginable. A global pandemic and a new civil-rights movement put basketball's trend-setting status to the ultimate test, as business and culture followed the lead of the NBA and its empowered stars. No team intersected with the extremes of 2020 quite like the Brooklyn Nets, and Matt Sullivan had a courtside view. Can't Knock the Hustle crosses from on the court, where underdogs confront A-listers like Jay-Z and James Harden, to off the court, as players march through the streets of Brooklyn, provoke Donald Trump at the White House, and boycott the NBA's bubble experiment in Disney World. Hundreds of interviews—with Hall-of-Famers, All-Stars, executives, coaches and power-brokers across the world—provide a backdrop of the NBA's impact on social media, race, politics, health, fashion, fame and fandom, for a portrait of a time when sports brought us back together again, like never before.
Don't Knock the Hustle
Author: S. Craig Watkins
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807035300
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
Offers a timely analysis of the sheer ingenuity and persistence of young people who cobble together the resources they need to pursue the lives and careers they want. Young adults are coming of age at a time when work is temporary, underpaid, incommensurate with their education, or downright unsatisfying. Despite these challenges, media scholar S. Craig Watkins argues that this moment of precarity is rife with opportunities for innovation, and that young adults are leading the charge in turning that into an inventive and surprisingly sustainable future. As a result, society is expanding its understanding of who we think of as innovators and what qualifies as innovation, while wealth is spreading beyond traditional corridors of powerful tech companies, venture capitalism, and well-endowed universities. Drawing on over ten years of interviews and data, Watkins reveals the radical ways in which this community of ambitious young creatives is transforming businesses from the outside in. Diverse perspectives that are often ignored or silenced by major corporations are garnering public attention as women and people of color are redefining industries across the globe—all from their computer screens. We meet people like Prince Harvey, a New York–based hip-hop artist who recorded his album entirely on an Apple showroom laptop; screenwriter, producer, and actor Issa Rae, who first used YouTube and Kickstarter to develop the web series that became her hit HBO show Insecure; the Empowerment Plan, a nonprofit organization created by product design student Veronika Scott in Detroit; and start-up companies like Qeyno Group in San Francisco and Juegos Rancheros in Austin that help make tech more accessible to people of color. Forward-thinking and dynamic, Don’t Knock the Hustle shows the diversity and complexity of a generation on the rise. UNIQUE APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING MILLENNIALS that looks beyond stereotypes about their relationships with tech and labor, based on two years of MacArthur Grant–funded research. DIVERSE AUDIENCE APPEAL that will reach millennials, educators, people seeking to hire millennials, and scholars of technology, media, and labor.
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807035300
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
Offers a timely analysis of the sheer ingenuity and persistence of young people who cobble together the resources they need to pursue the lives and careers they want. Young adults are coming of age at a time when work is temporary, underpaid, incommensurate with their education, or downright unsatisfying. Despite these challenges, media scholar S. Craig Watkins argues that this moment of precarity is rife with opportunities for innovation, and that young adults are leading the charge in turning that into an inventive and surprisingly sustainable future. As a result, society is expanding its understanding of who we think of as innovators and what qualifies as innovation, while wealth is spreading beyond traditional corridors of powerful tech companies, venture capitalism, and well-endowed universities. Drawing on over ten years of interviews and data, Watkins reveals the radical ways in which this community of ambitious young creatives is transforming businesses from the outside in. Diverse perspectives that are often ignored or silenced by major corporations are garnering public attention as women and people of color are redefining industries across the globe—all from their computer screens. We meet people like Prince Harvey, a New York–based hip-hop artist who recorded his album entirely on an Apple showroom laptop; screenwriter, producer, and actor Issa Rae, who first used YouTube and Kickstarter to develop the web series that became her hit HBO show Insecure; the Empowerment Plan, a nonprofit organization created by product design student Veronika Scott in Detroit; and start-up companies like Qeyno Group in San Francisco and Juegos Rancheros in Austin that help make tech more accessible to people of color. Forward-thinking and dynamic, Don’t Knock the Hustle shows the diversity and complexity of a generation on the rise. UNIQUE APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING MILLENNIALS that looks beyond stereotypes about their relationships with tech and labor, based on two years of MacArthur Grant–funded research. DIVERSE AUDIENCE APPEAL that will reach millennials, educators, people seeking to hire millennials, and scholars of technology, media, and labor.
Knock the Hustle
Author: Hadji Williams
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
What happens when you combine a lifetime in gritty urban neighborhoods with over a decade of building brands for some of the world's top companies? What happens when you discover that many of the 'hood's most corrosive characters, temptations and pitfalls have infiltrated Madison Avenue, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street? What happens when you realize that professionalism, common sense, and good business sense are being stifled by constructs, hidden agendas, and greed? What happens when you realize that the only way out is to fight back? You get KNOCK THE HUSTLE: How to Save Your Job and Your Life from Corporate America. Written by Hadji Williams, a respected 11-year veteran of the marketing and advertising industries (and product of Chicago's urban communities), KNOCK THE HUSTLE a wrecking-ball of insider-information and eye-popping revelations on the corrosive cultures of many of today's top companies. KNOCK THE HUSTLE is also your personal blueprint for succeeding in spite of it. KNOCK THE HUSTLE strips away tired grad school jargon and paradigms and serves up uncanny wisdom that everyone can use. KNOCK THE HUSTLE is the real talk everyone from the corner to the classroom to the corner office has been waiting for.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
What happens when you combine a lifetime in gritty urban neighborhoods with over a decade of building brands for some of the world's top companies? What happens when you discover that many of the 'hood's most corrosive characters, temptations and pitfalls have infiltrated Madison Avenue, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street? What happens when you realize that professionalism, common sense, and good business sense are being stifled by constructs, hidden agendas, and greed? What happens when you realize that the only way out is to fight back? You get KNOCK THE HUSTLE: How to Save Your Job and Your Life from Corporate America. Written by Hadji Williams, a respected 11-year veteran of the marketing and advertising industries (and product of Chicago's urban communities), KNOCK THE HUSTLE a wrecking-ball of insider-information and eye-popping revelations on the corrosive cultures of many of today's top companies. KNOCK THE HUSTLE is also your personal blueprint for succeeding in spite of it. KNOCK THE HUSTLE strips away tired grad school jargon and paradigms and serves up uncanny wisdom that everyone can use. KNOCK THE HUSTLE is the real talk everyone from the corner to the classroom to the corner office has been waiting for.
Decoded
Author: Jay-Z
Publisher: One World
ISBN: 1588369595
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Decoded is a book like no other: a collection of lyrics and their meanings that together tell the story of a culture, an art form, a moment in history, and one of the most provocative and successful artists of our time. Praise for Decoded “Compelling . . . provocative, evocative . . . Part autobiography, part lavishly illustrated commentary on the author’s own work, Decoded gives the reader a harrowing portrait of the rough worlds Jay-Z navigated in his youth, while at the same time deconstructing his lyrics.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “One of a handful of books that just about any hip hop fan should own.”—The New Yorker “Elegantly designed, incisively written . . . an impressive leap by a man who has never been known for small steps.”—Los Angeles Times “A riveting exploration of Jay-Z’s journey . . . So thoroughly engrossing, it reads like a good piece of cultural journalism.”—The Boston Globe “Shawn Carter’s most honest airing of the experiences he drew on to create the mythic figure of Jay-Z . . . The scenes he recounts along the way are fascinating.”—Entertainment Weekly “Hip-hop’s renaissance man drops a classic. . . . Heartfelt, passionate and slick.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Publisher: One World
ISBN: 1588369595
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Decoded is a book like no other: a collection of lyrics and their meanings that together tell the story of a culture, an art form, a moment in history, and one of the most provocative and successful artists of our time. Praise for Decoded “Compelling . . . provocative, evocative . . . Part autobiography, part lavishly illustrated commentary on the author’s own work, Decoded gives the reader a harrowing portrait of the rough worlds Jay-Z navigated in his youth, while at the same time deconstructing his lyrics.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “One of a handful of books that just about any hip hop fan should own.”—The New Yorker “Elegantly designed, incisively written . . . an impressive leap by a man who has never been known for small steps.”—Los Angeles Times “A riveting exploration of Jay-Z’s journey . . . So thoroughly engrossing, it reads like a good piece of cultural journalism.”—The Boston Globe “Shawn Carter’s most honest airing of the experiences he drew on to create the mythic figure of Jay-Z . . . The scenes he recounts along the way are fascinating.”—Entertainment Weekly “Hip-hop’s renaissance man drops a classic. . . . Heartfelt, passionate and slick.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Knocking the Hustle
Author: Lester Spence
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692540794
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
Over the past several years scholars, activists, and analysts have begun to examine the growing divide between the wealthy and the rest of us, suggesting that the divide can be traced to the neoliberal turn. "I'm not a business man; I'm a business, man." Perhaps no better statement gets at the heart of this turn. Increasingly we're being forced to think of ourselves in entrepreneurial terms, forced to take more and more responsibility for developing our "human capital." Furthermore a range of institutions from churches to schools to entire cities have been remade, restructured to in order to perform like businesses. Finally, even political concepts like freedom, and democracy have been significantly altered. As a result we face higher levels of inequality than any other time over the last century. In Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics, Lester K. Spence writes the first book length effort to chart the effects of this transformation on African American communities, in an attempt to revitalize the black political imagination. Rather than asking black men and women to "hustle harder" Spence criticizes the act of hustling itself as a tactic used to demobilize and disempower the communities most in need of empowerment.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692540794
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
Over the past several years scholars, activists, and analysts have begun to examine the growing divide between the wealthy and the rest of us, suggesting that the divide can be traced to the neoliberal turn. "I'm not a business man; I'm a business, man." Perhaps no better statement gets at the heart of this turn. Increasingly we're being forced to think of ourselves in entrepreneurial terms, forced to take more and more responsibility for developing our "human capital." Furthermore a range of institutions from churches to schools to entire cities have been remade, restructured to in order to perform like businesses. Finally, even political concepts like freedom, and democracy have been significantly altered. As a result we face higher levels of inequality than any other time over the last century. In Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics, Lester K. Spence writes the first book length effort to chart the effects of this transformation on African American communities, in an attempt to revitalize the black political imagination. Rather than asking black men and women to "hustle harder" Spence criticizes the act of hustling itself as a tactic used to demobilize and disempower the communities most in need of empowerment.
X Saves the World
Author: Jeff Gordinier
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780670018581
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
Examines the generation that came of age between the Baby Boomers and the Millennials, providing a tribute to its cultural, technological, and political contributions, from Yahoo! and Lollapalooza to Nirvana and Woodstock '94.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780670018581
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
Examines the generation that came of age between the Baby Boomers and the Millennials, providing a tribute to its cultural, technological, and political contributions, from Yahoo! and Lollapalooza to Nirvana and Woodstock '94.
Cheetah
Author: Missy Jackson
Publisher: WAHIDA CLARK PRESENTS
ISBN: 1936649748
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
Born and raised on the mean streets of Newark, New Jersey, Yanika Johnson aka Cheetah is far from your average female. A true thug in every sense of the word, Cheetah has the ego and persona to prove it all. After she and her best friend Naj take the Newark drug trade by storm, haters begin to do just what they do best . . . HATE. Can the tough streets of this brick city accept being run by two women? Or will their budding empire come tumbling down?
Publisher: WAHIDA CLARK PRESENTS
ISBN: 1936649748
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
Born and raised on the mean streets of Newark, New Jersey, Yanika Johnson aka Cheetah is far from your average female. A true thug in every sense of the word, Cheetah has the ego and persona to prove it all. After she and her best friend Naj take the Newark drug trade by storm, haters begin to do just what they do best . . . HATE. Can the tough streets of this brick city accept being run by two women? Or will their budding empire come tumbling down?
JAY-Z
Author: Michael Eric Dyson
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 125027088X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 173
Book Description
NOW A NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, AND PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY BESTSELLER "Dyson writes with the affection of a fan but the rigor of an academic. ... Using extensive passages from Jay-Z’s lyrics, 'Made in America' examines the rapper’s role as a poet, an aesthete, an advocate for racial justice and a business, man, but devotes much of its energy to Hova the Hustler." —Allison Stewart, The Washington Post "Dyson's incisive analysis of JAY-Z's brilliance not only offers a brief history of hip-hop's critical place in American culture, but also hints at how we can best move forward." —Questlove JAY-Z: Made in America is the fruit of Michael Eric Dyson’s decade of teaching the work of one of the greatest poets this nation has produced, as gifted a wordsmith as Walt Whitman, Robert Frost and Rita Dove. But as a rapper, he’s sometimes not given the credit he deserves for just how great an artist he’s been for so long. This book wrestles with the biggest themes of JAY-Z's career, including hustling, and it recognizes the way that he’s always weaved politics into his music, making important statements about race, criminal justice, black wealth and social injustice. As he enters his fifties, and to mark his thirty years as a recording artist, this is the perfect time to take a look at JAY-Z’s career and his role in making this nation what it is today. In many ways, this is JAY-Z’s America as much as it’s Pelosi’s America, or Trump’s America, or Martin Luther King’s America. JAY-Z has given this country a language to think with and words to live by. Featuring a Foreword by Pharrell
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 125027088X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 173
Book Description
NOW A NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, AND PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY BESTSELLER "Dyson writes with the affection of a fan but the rigor of an academic. ... Using extensive passages from Jay-Z’s lyrics, 'Made in America' examines the rapper’s role as a poet, an aesthete, an advocate for racial justice and a business, man, but devotes much of its energy to Hova the Hustler." —Allison Stewart, The Washington Post "Dyson's incisive analysis of JAY-Z's brilliance not only offers a brief history of hip-hop's critical place in American culture, but also hints at how we can best move forward." —Questlove JAY-Z: Made in America is the fruit of Michael Eric Dyson’s decade of teaching the work of one of the greatest poets this nation has produced, as gifted a wordsmith as Walt Whitman, Robert Frost and Rita Dove. But as a rapper, he’s sometimes not given the credit he deserves for just how great an artist he’s been for so long. This book wrestles with the biggest themes of JAY-Z's career, including hustling, and it recognizes the way that he’s always weaved politics into his music, making important statements about race, criminal justice, black wealth and social injustice. As he enters his fifties, and to mark his thirty years as a recording artist, this is the perfect time to take a look at JAY-Z’s career and his role in making this nation what it is today. In many ways, this is JAY-Z’s America as much as it’s Pelosi’s America, or Trump’s America, or Martin Luther King’s America. JAY-Z has given this country a language to think with and words to live by. Featuring a Foreword by Pharrell
The Inside Game
Author: Keith Law
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062942743
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
In this groundbreaking book, Keith Law, baseball writer for The Athletic and author of the acclaimed Smart Baseball, offers an era-spanning dissection of some of the best and worst decisions in modern baseball, explaining what motivated them, what can be learned from them, and how their legacy has shaped the game. For years, Daniel Kahneman’s iconic work of behavioral science Thinking Fast and Slow has been required reading in front offices across Major League Baseball. In this smart, incisive, and eye-opening book, Keith Law applies Kahneman’s ideas about decision making to the game itself. Baseball is a sport of decisions. Some are so small and routine they become the building blocks of the game itself—what pitch to throw or when to swing away. Others are so huge they dictate the future of franchises—when to make a strategic trade for a chance to win now, or when to offer a millions and a multi-year contract for a twenty-eight-year-old star. These decisions have long shaped the behavior of players, managers, and entire franchises. But as those choices have become more complex and data-driven, knowing what’s behind them has become key to understanding the sport. This fascinating, revelatory work explores as never before the essential question: What were they thinking? Combining behavioral science and interviews with executives, managers, and players, Keith Law analyzes baseball’s biggest decision making successes and failures, looking at how gambles and calculated risks of all sizes and scales have shaped the sport, and how the game’s ongoing data revolution is rewriting decades of accepted decision making. In the process, he explores questions that have long been debated, from whether throwing harder really increases a player’s risk of serious injury to whether teams actually “overvalue” trade prospects. Bringing his analytical and combative style to some of baseball’s longest running debates, Law deepens our knowledge of the sport in this entertaining work that is both fun and deeply informative.
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062942743
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
In this groundbreaking book, Keith Law, baseball writer for The Athletic and author of the acclaimed Smart Baseball, offers an era-spanning dissection of some of the best and worst decisions in modern baseball, explaining what motivated them, what can be learned from them, and how their legacy has shaped the game. For years, Daniel Kahneman’s iconic work of behavioral science Thinking Fast and Slow has been required reading in front offices across Major League Baseball. In this smart, incisive, and eye-opening book, Keith Law applies Kahneman’s ideas about decision making to the game itself. Baseball is a sport of decisions. Some are so small and routine they become the building blocks of the game itself—what pitch to throw or when to swing away. Others are so huge they dictate the future of franchises—when to make a strategic trade for a chance to win now, or when to offer a millions and a multi-year contract for a twenty-eight-year-old star. These decisions have long shaped the behavior of players, managers, and entire franchises. But as those choices have become more complex and data-driven, knowing what’s behind them has become key to understanding the sport. This fascinating, revelatory work explores as never before the essential question: What were they thinking? Combining behavioral science and interviews with executives, managers, and players, Keith Law analyzes baseball’s biggest decision making successes and failures, looking at how gambles and calculated risks of all sizes and scales have shaped the sport, and how the game’s ongoing data revolution is rewriting decades of accepted decision making. In the process, he explores questions that have long been debated, from whether throwing harder really increases a player’s risk of serious injury to whether teams actually “overvalue” trade prospects. Bringing his analytical and combative style to some of baseball’s longest running debates, Law deepens our knowledge of the sport in this entertaining work that is both fun and deeply informative.
Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem
Author: Daniel R. Day
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0525510532
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Dapper Dan is a legend, an icon, a beacon of inspiration to many in the Black community. His story isn’t just about fashion. It’s about tenacity, curiosity, artistry, hustle, love, and a singular determination to live our dreams out loud.”—Ava DuVernay, director of Selma, 13th, and A Wrinkle in Time NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY VANITY FAIR • DAPPER DAN NAMED ONE OF TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD With his now-legendary store on 125th Street in Harlem, Dapper Dan pioneered high-end streetwear in the 1980s, remixing classic luxury-brand logos into his own innovative, glamorous designs. But before he reinvented haute couture, he was a hungry boy with holes in his shoes, a teen who daringly gambled drug dealers out of their money, and a young man in a prison cell who found nourishment in books. In this remarkable memoir, he tells his full story for the first time. Decade after decade, Dapper Dan discovered creative ways to flourish in a country designed to privilege certain Americans over others. He witnessed, profited from, and despised the rise of two drug epidemics. He invented stunningly bold credit card frauds that took him around the world. He paid neighborhood kids to jog with him in an effort to keep them out of the drug game. And when he turned his attention to fashion, he did so with the energy and curiosity with which he approaches all things: learning how to treat fur himself when no one would sell finished fur coats to a Black man; finding the best dressed hustler in the neighborhood and converting him into a customer; staying open twenty-four hours a day for nine years straight to meet demand; and, finally, emerging as a world-famous designer whose looks went on to define an era, dressing cultural icons including Eric B. and Rakim, Salt-N-Pepa, Big Daddy Kane, Mike Tyson, Alpo Martinez, LL Cool J, Jam Master Jay, Diddy, Naomi Campbell, and Jay-Z. By turns playful, poignant, thrilling, and inspiring, Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem is a high-stakes coming-of-age story spanning more than seventy years and set against the backdrop of an America where, as in the life of its narrator, the only constant is change. Praise for Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem “Dapper Dan is a true one of a kind, self-made, self-liberated, and the sharpest man you will ever see. He is couture himself.”—Marcus Samuelsson, New York Times bestselling author of Yes, Chef “What James Baldwin is to American literature, Dapper Dan is to American fashion. He is the ultimate success saga, an iconic fashion hero to multiple generations, fusing street with high sartorial elegance. He is pure American style.”—André Leon Talley, Vogue contributing editor and author
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0525510532
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Dapper Dan is a legend, an icon, a beacon of inspiration to many in the Black community. His story isn’t just about fashion. It’s about tenacity, curiosity, artistry, hustle, love, and a singular determination to live our dreams out loud.”—Ava DuVernay, director of Selma, 13th, and A Wrinkle in Time NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY VANITY FAIR • DAPPER DAN NAMED ONE OF TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD With his now-legendary store on 125th Street in Harlem, Dapper Dan pioneered high-end streetwear in the 1980s, remixing classic luxury-brand logos into his own innovative, glamorous designs. But before he reinvented haute couture, he was a hungry boy with holes in his shoes, a teen who daringly gambled drug dealers out of their money, and a young man in a prison cell who found nourishment in books. In this remarkable memoir, he tells his full story for the first time. Decade after decade, Dapper Dan discovered creative ways to flourish in a country designed to privilege certain Americans over others. He witnessed, profited from, and despised the rise of two drug epidemics. He invented stunningly bold credit card frauds that took him around the world. He paid neighborhood kids to jog with him in an effort to keep them out of the drug game. And when he turned his attention to fashion, he did so with the energy and curiosity with which he approaches all things: learning how to treat fur himself when no one would sell finished fur coats to a Black man; finding the best dressed hustler in the neighborhood and converting him into a customer; staying open twenty-four hours a day for nine years straight to meet demand; and, finally, emerging as a world-famous designer whose looks went on to define an era, dressing cultural icons including Eric B. and Rakim, Salt-N-Pepa, Big Daddy Kane, Mike Tyson, Alpo Martinez, LL Cool J, Jam Master Jay, Diddy, Naomi Campbell, and Jay-Z. By turns playful, poignant, thrilling, and inspiring, Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem is a high-stakes coming-of-age story spanning more than seventy years and set against the backdrop of an America where, as in the life of its narrator, the only constant is change. Praise for Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem “Dapper Dan is a true one of a kind, self-made, self-liberated, and the sharpest man you will ever see. He is couture himself.”—Marcus Samuelsson, New York Times bestselling author of Yes, Chef “What James Baldwin is to American literature, Dapper Dan is to American fashion. He is the ultimate success saga, an iconic fashion hero to multiple generations, fusing street with high sartorial elegance. He is pure American style.”—André Leon Talley, Vogue contributing editor and author