Author: Ben Westhoff
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 0316344869
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 432
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Book Description
"Raw, authoritative, and unflinching ... An elaborately detailed, darkly surprising, definitive history of the LA gangsta rap era." -- Kirkus, starred review A monumental, revealing narrative history about the legendary group of artists at the forefront of West Coast hip-hop: Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac Shakur. Amid rising gang violence, the crack epidemic, and police brutality, a group of unlikely voices cut through the chaos of late 1980s Los Angeles: N.W.A. Led by a drug dealer, a glammed-up producer, and a high school kid, N.W.A gave voice to disenfranchised African Americans across the country. And they quickly redefined pop culture across the world. Their names remain as popular as ever -- Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, and Ice Cube. Dre soon joined forces with Suge Knight to create the combustible Death Row Records, which in turn transformed Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur into superstars. Ben Westhoff explores how this group of artists shifted the balance of hip-hop from New York to Los Angeles. He shows how N.W.A.'s shocking success lead to rivalries between members, record labels, and eventually a war between East Coast and West Coast factions. In the process, hip-hop burst into mainstream America at a time of immense social change, and became the most dominant musical movement of the last thirty years. At gangsta rap's peak, two of its biggest names -- Tupac and Biggie Smalls -- were murdered, leaving the surviving artists to forge peace before the genre annihilated itself. Featuring extensive investigative reporting, interviews with the principal players, and dozens of never-before-told stories, Original Gangstas is a groundbreaking addition to the history of popular music.
Author: Ben Westhoff
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
ISBN: 080214795X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 365
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Book Description
A four-year investigation into the world of synthetic drugs—from black market factories to users & dealers to harm reduction activists—and what it revealed. A deeply human story, Fentanyl, Inc. is the first deep-dive investigation of a hazardous and illicit industry that has created a worldwide epidemic, ravaging communities and overwhelming and confounding government agencies that are challenged to combat it. “A whole new crop of chemicals is radically changing the recreational drug landscape,” writes Ben Westhoff. “These are known as Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) and they include replacements for known drugs like heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana. They are synthetic, made in a laboratory, and are much more potent than traditional drugs” —and all-too-often tragically lethal. Drugs like fentanyl, K2, and Spice—and those with arcane acronyms like 25i-NBOMe—were all originally conceived in legitimate laboratories for proper scientific and medicinal purposes. Their formulas were then hijacked and manufactured by rogue chemists, largely in China, who change their molecular structures to stay ahead of the law, making the drugs’ effects impossible to predict. Westhoff has infiltrated this shadowy world. He tracks down the little-known scientists who invented these drugs and inadvertently killed thousands, as well as a mysterious drug baron who turned the law upside down in his home country of New Zealand. Westhoff visits the shady factories in China from which these drugs emanate, providing startling and original reporting on how China’s vast chemical industry operates, and how the Chinese government subsidizes it. Poignantly, he chronicles the lives of addicted users and dealers, families of victims, law enforcement officers, and underground drug awareness organizers in the United States and Europe. Together they represent the shocking and riveting full anatomy of a calamity we are just beginning to understand. From its depths, as Westhoff relates, are emerging new strategies that may provide essential long-term solutions to the drug crisis that has affected so many. “Timely and agonizing. . . . An impressive work of investigative journalism.” —USA Today “Westhoff explores the many-tentacled world of illicit opioids, from the streets of East St. Louis to Chinese pharmaceutical companies, from music festivals deep in the Michigan woods to sanctioned ‘shooting up rooms’ in Barcelona, in this frank, insightful, and occasionally searing exposé. . . . Westhoff’s well-reported and researched work will likely open eyes, slow knee-jerk responses, and start much needed conversations.” —Publishers Weekly “Our 25 Favorite Books of 2019” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch “Best Books of 2019” —Buzzfeed “Best Nonfiction of 2019” —Kirkus Reviews “50 Best Books of 2019” —Daily Telegraph “Best Nonfiction Books of 2019” —Tyler Cowen “Best Books of 2019” —Yahoo Finance
Author: Ronin Ro
Publisher: Main Street Books
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 400
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Book Description
Preeminent rap journalist Ronin Ro exposes Death Row Records: an empire built on greed, corruption, murder, and exploitation. 16 photos.
Author: Richie Stephens
Publisher: Post Hill Press
ISBN: 1637588771
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 151
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Book Description
Richie Stephens is an actor who often plays hardened gangsters and criminals. This is easy for him because he was a drug trafficker, kidnapper, drug addict, alcoholic, and all-around criminal himself. His life twisted and turned in harrowing self-destructive adventures that took him from his native Ireland to San Francisco, Australia, and finally, Los Angeles, coalescing into a classic tale of a man trying to run from his problems by moving to new and more exotic locations—a hard and painful realization that comes at a point in which he’s about to take his own life. The only reason there is a story to tell is because he did not. Instead, he found help, and in doing so, found himself. More than that, he found that help comes in different forms, and oftentimes it just takes the right thought to hit at the right time for it all to make sense. The Gangster’s Guide to Sobriety chronicles Richie’s descent into the abyss of crime and dependency, and how his personal understanding of freedom allowed him to become the functioning positive force he is today. Richie’s story is sprawling and epic, but the key to the book is the same key to his recovery: the 12 Steps. With his own flair and original understanding of life and the world, he followed the 12 Steps to find the clarity he needed to save his own life and evolve into a positive force for others. As Richie says, “Hopefully if people see that someone as fucked up as me could change their life, then there is hope for anyone.” The Gangster’s Guide to Sobriety is gripping in its honesty and openness. Even at its darkest moments, there is a keen understanding of the absurd nature of life as the author comes to grips with his failings and his faith, while also entering a place of self-acceptance. This is a story of redemption and the power of the human spirit, and how sometimes you have to turn to something greater than yourself.
Author: Frank Lucas
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 9780312571641
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
A suspenseful memoir from the real life American gangster, Frank Lucas In his own words, Frank Lucas recounts his life as the former heroin dealer and organized crime boss who ran Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s. From being taken under the wing of old time gangster Bumpy Johnson, through one of the most successful drug smuggling operations, to being sentenced to seventy years in prison, Original Gangster is a chilling look at the rise and fall of a modern legacy. Frank Lucas realized that in order to gain the kind of success he craved he would have to break the monopoly that the Italian mafia held in New York. So Frank cut out middlemen and began smuggling heroin into the United States directly from his source in the Golden Triangle by using coffins. Making a million dollars per day selling "Blue Magic"—what was known as the purest heroin on the street—Frank Lucas became one of the most powerful crime lords of his time, while rubbing shoulders with the elite in entertainment, politics, and crime. After his arrest, Federal Judge Sterling Johnson, the special narcotics prosecutor in New York at the time of Lucas' crimes, called Lucas and his operation "one of the most outrageous international dope-smuggling gangs ever, an innovator who got his own connections outside the U.S. and then sold the narcotics himself in the street." T his powerful memoir reveals what really happened to the man whose career was dramatized in the 2007 feature film American Gangster, exposing a startling look at the world of organized crime.
Author: Soren Baker
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1683352351
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 636
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Book Description
Journalist Soren Baker’sThe History of Gangster Rap takes a deep dive into this fascinating music subgenre. Foreword by Xzibit Sixteen detailed chapters, organized chronologically, examine the evolution of gangster rap, its main players, and the culture that created this revolutionary music. From still-swirling conspiracy theories about the murders of Biggie and Tupac to the release of the film Straight Outta Compton, the era of gangster rap is one that fascinates music junkies and remains at the forefront of pop culture. Filled with interviews with key players such as Snoop Dogg, Ice-T, and dozens more, as well as sidebars, breakout bios of notorious characters, lists, charts, and beyond, The History of Gangster Rap is the be-all-end-all book that contextualizes the importance of gangster rap as a cultural phenomenon. “History has so often been written by the victors, that you very rarely ever get the real story behind anything. So it’s really important to hear from the people that were there, which is exactly what Soren Baker shares in this book. He writes about it and he’s honest about it.” —The D.O.C.
Author: Randall Sullivan
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 1555847439
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
A journalist’s story of corruption in the LAPD and hip-hop’s most infamous murders—“the most thorough examination of these much-publicized events” (Renée Graham, The Boston Globe). Acclaimed journalist Randall Sullivan follows Russell Poole, a highly decorated LAPD detective who, in 1997, was called to investigate a controversial cop-on-cop shooting, eventually to discover that the officer killed was tied to Marion “Suge” Knight’s notorious gangsta rap label, Death Row Records. During his investigation, Poole came to realize that a growing cadre of outlaw officers were allied not only with Death Row, but with the murderous Bloods street gang. And incredibly, Poole began to uncover evidence that at least some of these “gangsta cops” may have been involved in the murders of rap superstars Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. Igniting a firestorm of controversy in the music industry and the Los Angeles media, the release of LAbyrinth helped to prompt two lawsuits against the LAPD (one brought by the widow and mother of Notorious B.I.G., the other brought by Poole himself) that may finally bring this story completely out of the shadows.
Author: S. Leigh Savidge
Publisher: Xenon Pictures, Incorporated
ISBN: 9781597884068
Category : African American musicians
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
It started in Compton. it ended in infamy. In the wake of Marion "Suge" Knight's move to rip the guts out of Ruthless Records and NWA, Death Row Records exploded on the music scene in 1993 with the "gangster rap" sound that had taken world by storm.Yet despite its unprecedented success with stars such as Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur, it quickly unraveled in a firestorm of rivalries, greed, violence and government scrutiny as Suge Knight's unconventional business methods increasingly mirrored the violent, hard-edged themes of its music. Based on the award winning documentary film of the same name, WELCOME TO DEATH ROW is the complete and untold story of the rise and fall of the notorious Death Row Records label, presented as an oral history through first-hand accounts of the people that lived it. It is vastly expanded with compelling (and sometimes shocking) accounts not heard in the documentary film, with stories from over 60 former Death Row rappers, promoters, music executives, journalists, producers, managers, publicists, lawyers and drug dealers -all eyewitnesses to the label's phenomenal success, internal battles and violence, and its inevitable crash. Interwoven with these histories is the story of the high-risk quest to complete the film, chronicling how director Leigh Savidge and producers Steve Housden & Jeff Scheftel navigated a surreal world of Crips & Bloods, crooked lawyers and cocaine kingpins, 'gangsta' rappers and thuggish music executives, and how the team persuaded the key players to tell their story under the threat of retaliation from every element, including threats from major music companies and the bizarre involvement of OJ Simpson prosecutor Chris Darden. Universal Pictures' STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON was developed at Xenon as a follow up to the WELCOME TO DEATH ROW with its producers constructing the story and acquiring rights, and initial drafts of the screenplay written by Savidge, for which he received an Oscar nomination.
Author: S. Paul O'Hara
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253004993
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
U.S. Steel created Gary, Indiana. The new steel plant and town built on the site in 1906 were at once a triumph of industrial capitalism and a bold experiment in urban planning. Gary became the canvas onto which the American public projected its hopes and fears about modern, industrial society. In its prime, Gary was known as "the magic city," "steel's greatest achievement," and "an industrial utopia"; later it would be called "the very model of urban decay." S. Paul O'Hara traces this stark reversal of fortune and reveals America's changing expectations. He delivers a riveting account of the boom or bust mentality of American industrialism from the turn of the 20th century to the present day.
Author: Jonathan Reiss
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 0306845415
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 326
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Book Description
A compelling biography of SoundCloud sensation and rising star XXXTENTACION -- from his candid songwriting and connection with fans to his tragic death. At the age of twenty, rapper Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy-aka XXXTENTACION-was gunned down during an attempted robbery on the streets of Deerfield Beach, Florida, mere months after signing a $10 million record deal with Empire Music. A rising star in the world of SoundCloud rap, XXXTENTACION achieved stellar levels of success without the benefit of a major label or radio airtime, and flourished via his passionate and unfettered connection to his fans. In Look at Me!, journalist Jonathan Reiss charts the tumultuous life and unguarded songwriting of the SoundCloud sensation. Unlike most rap on the platform, XXXTENTACION's music didn't dwell on money, partying, and getting high. He wrote about depression, suicide, and other mental health issues, topics that led to an outpouring of posthumous appreciation from his devoted fanbase. It was XXXTENTACION's vulnerability that helped him stand apart from artists obsessed with being successful and "cool." Yet these insecurities also stemmed from-and contributed to-his fair share of troubles, including repeated run-ins with the law during his teen years, a disturbing proclivity toward violence, and a prison sentence that overlapped with the release of his first single. Through the memories of the people who knew him best, Look at Me! maps out the true story of an unlikely cultural icon and elucidates what it was about him that touched the post-millennial generation so deeply.
