A provocative analysis of the new contours of Black nationalism and feminism in the context of the changing politics of race in America.

    

    At the age of sixteen, Julius Cavero was hit three times in a gang shoot-out in a park. Left there almost dead, he survived after weeks in a hospital emergency unit. With little else to do in the hospital, he drew endlessly, and it was there that he chose to become T-Kid 170--T for the tall and skinny look he had, and Kid just because that's what so many people called him. He had given up his gang life to focus on art. Few artists today can tell a tale like T-Kid's--a ghetto childhood, gangbanging, and daring feasts of graffiti. Too many of the others who were there left their lives or their art behind, but T-Kid, who won fame early on, lived to tell the tale and withstood his test of time. The Nasty Terrible T-Kid 170 retraces his life from the early 1960s to 2005 through his written accounts and artwork, including images of painted trains, walls, canvases, drawings, and sketches produced over the last thirty years. A journey through a life, an era, and the South Bronx, the book displays T-Kid's contributions to the graffiti movement and his role in the difficult and chaotic origins of hip hop.

    Dre's influence. With innovations in style that started with the hip-hop group N.W.A., and, later, as a solo rapper and producer, Dre's influence and lasting impact on hip-hop music and culture is undeniable. He pioneered a new style of music that in the early 1990s would come to be known as gangsta rap, and his proteges - Snoop and Eminem - are both considered some of the top rappers to emerge since rap was born on the streets of New York three decades ago. This biography traces Dre's rise to fame, a story that parallels the rise of hip-hop as one of the most dominant cultural forces in America.Dre came of age at the time when hip-hop culture (rapping, breakdancing, Deejaying, and Graffiti art) began an underground trend in urban America. Chapters take the reader from Dre's childhood in Los Angeles through his friendships, early influences, and the birth of his music career. Also discussed is the tragic tale of Death Row Records, which culminates in the high-profile murders of rap artists Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. and serves as a lesson on what can go wrong when people in the rap business believe their own gangsta hype. Dre's ability to survive in the rough-and-tumble rap industry is a testament to the power of artistic vision and the payoff of sheer persistence.

    There were writers who did more graffiti, but no one matched Desa when it came to bad luck: he was in the midst of a hard-luck life when he became the whipping boy of New York's law enforcement whenever it needed to make its graffiti crackdown visible. Desa's legal trials for graffiti made headlines: notoriety which Desa alternately relished and ran from. Million Dollar Vandal chronicles Desa's violent and tragic life, from his Bushwick childhood to his present day as a reclusive, unemployed man moving about his day-to-day life -- every bit of it punctuated with the graffiti that brought him fame and trouble. Presented by Also Known As, renowned for magnificent print, photographic, and production quality.