***** ( 5/5)
I am not a fan of street-lit, worse yet I am not a big fan of rappers trying to act, much less writing. When I heard that C-Murder wrote a book- fiction no less, I rolled my eyes, hard. Then I happened to read an excerpt from the book in one issue of Vibe magazine and gasp! - It actually sounded good. Well written, grammatically correct, interesting. I was shocked and but still put off actually purchasing the book for a while. I mean any excerpt could sound good and be grammatically correct. Plus I didn’t’ think I could handle the looks on my friends faces when I would tell them what I was reading. However, that excerpt was good, it has a solid 5 star amazon.com rating, and so eventually I broke down and bought the book and all I can say is WOW.
At times I wondered if there was a ghostwriter (nope- at the end he tells the story of how, when, why he wrote the book) besides I’m not sure anyone at Vibe could write this well. I’ll admit, I went into this book very skeptical, looking for mistakes and anything I could find and I didn’t find anything. This book has it all character development (great character development) a good, solid plot, a good style, a viable theme, great , realistic dialoige, all that other stuff from HS English. However, most importantly it has a ( realistic) story and a purpose. It's not just glorifying like some of the other street trash lit that is polluting the shelves.
Death around the Corner introduces us to Daquan. Born and bred in the Calliope (CP3), Daquan gets an early and real introduction to the streets. He continues on this path as one of the youngest and most respected hustlers in NOLA, until he finds his passion, in music. DATC follows Daquan as he tries to make this transition from the streets to the studio. It’s a coming of age story for a totally different set. We had Flyy Girl & Coldest Winter Ever, I believe DATC will slip on the shelves right between those two as the quintessential ‘hood coming of age story. It’s a book cross between Boyz in da hood an ATL (that’s the best I could do- its closer to Boyz in da hood, but updated and for a different part of the world- A southern Boyz in da hood!)
It was a pleasant surprised by this I truly enjoyed this book. C-Murder is very talented writer I am actually looking forward to future works by him.
Please not that this is an urban book. The language and the descriptions are very real and gritty. This book is not for the faint of heart. That being said- this book is not vulgar either- Just real. Real talk, real language (profanity, use of the n-word and the h-word, street slang), real vivid streets scenes ( drugs, sex ext.) if you listen to rap music or are from the streets, hood, inner-city or whatever you call it- you will not have any problems, otherwise be warned.This book is probably rated R.
I am NOT looking forward to future Vibe books ( I read the excerpt from the next book- that is exactly what I was expecting). Maybe another publisher will pick up C’s next work.
*On another note I once wrote a homage to No Limit Records and my love for them circa 1998, on my now defunct LJ blog. Please click here to read it.
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