American pop music is arguably this country’s greatest cultural contribution to the world, and its singular voice and virtuosity were created by a shining thread of Black women geniuses stretching back to the country’s founding. This is their surprising, heartbreaking, soaring story—from “one of the generation’s greatest, most insightful, most nuanced writers in pop culture” (Shea Serrano)

“Sparkling . . . the overdue singing of a Black girl’s song, with perfect pitch . . . delicious to read.”—Oprah Daily

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, The Root, Variety, Esquire, The Guardian, Newsweek, Pitchfork, She Reads, Publishers Weekly

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD

Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum–selling artist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Fat Joe pulls back the curtain on his larger-than-life persona in this gritty, intimate memoir about growing up in the South Bronx and finding his voice through music.

Fat Joe is a hip-hop legend, but this is not a tale of celebrity; it is the story of Joseph Cartagena, a kid who came of age in the South Bronx during its darkest years of drugs, violence, and abandonment, and how he navigated that traumatizing landscape until he found—through art, friendship, luck, and will—a rocky path to a different life.

This memoir, written in Joe’s own intensely compelling voice, moves with the momentum of pulp fiction, but underneath the tragicomedy and riveting tales of the streets and the industry is a thought-provoking story about a generation of survivors raised in warlike conditions—the life-and-death choices they had to make, the friends they lost and mourned, and the glittering lives they created from the ruins.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A raw, compelling memoir of baseball, family, fame, addiction, and recovery, by one of the most beloved baseball players of his generation

“Beautifully rendered . . . Readers and fans will be rooting for him to enter the Hall of Fame and rooting even harder for him to stay sober.”—The Wall Street Journal

How does it feel to be born with enormous gifts, in a life shadowed by tragedy? What does it mean when the gift that opens the world for us is not enough to stop us from losing the things we love? And what new gifts do we find in that loss? 

In theory, someone like me was never supposed to get the opportunity to be in my position.
 
I spent the early years of my life sleeping on floors and couches, running the streets as my mother dealt with the challenges of a drug addiction. Now I own what some say is the most influential and culturally relevant sports agency in America and do business with some of the biggest companies and most prominent people in the world. Back on my block, nobody could have predicted this. My trajectory is only supposed to happen to Ivy League types, or gifted athletes or entertainers—not someone who’s five-foot-eight and grew up with a pair of dice in one hand and a pistol in the other.

I’m finally ready to tell that story.