When the crack era jumped off in the 1980s, many street legends were born in a hail of gunfire. Business minded and ruthless dudes seized the opportunities afforded them, and certain individuals out of the city's five boroughs became synonymous with the definition of the new era black gangster. Drugs, murder, kidnappings, shootings, more drugs, and more murder were the rule of the day. They called it "The Game," but it was a vicious attempt to come up by any means necessary. In the late 19...

From one of the greatest rappers of all time, the memoir of a life cut short, a revealing look at the dark side of hip hop’s Golden Era...In this often violent but always introspective memoir, Mobb Deep’s Prodigy tells his much anticipated story of struggle, survival, and hope down the mean streets of New York City. For the first time, he gives an intimate look at his family background, his battles with drugs, his life of crime, his relentless suffering with sickle...

MEET CATIn Jamaica . . . he learned the art of the “jux”: robbing people by studying their everyday movements. By the age of eight, Cat was shoplifting and purse-snatching. By ten, he had his first gun. At fifteen, he committed his first murder.MAKE THE GANGIn New York City . . . he created The Order: a secret society of thieves who played by Cat’s rules. He taught his crew how to pull off the perfect jux. Made them swear on a bible and a bullet. Robbed dealers, pus...

From the hip-hop icon, Hollywood star, and “a true artist and writer of deep talent” (James McBride, author of The Color of Water)—a candid, New York Times bestselling memoir ranging from his childhood on Chicago’s South Side and his emergence as one of rap’s biggest names.Common has earned a reputation in the hip-hop world as a conscious artist by embracing themes of love and struggle in his songs. His journey toward understanding is rooted in hi...

From the founder of the Wu-Tang Clan, an inspirational book for the hip-hop fan.The RZA, founder of the Wu-Tang Clan, imparts the lessons he’s learned on his journey from the Staten Island projects to international superstardom. A devout student of knowledge in every form in which he’s found it, he distills here the wisdom he’s acquired into seven “pillars,” each based on a formative event in his life—from the moment he first heard the call of hip-hop to the death ...

My life’s been a great story / In the ultimate war / Should I ill or do right? / Make peace or go raw?—Ice-T, “Exodus”He’s a hip-hop icon credited with single-handedly creating gangsta rap in the 1980s. Television viewers know him as Detective Odafin “Fin” Tutuola on the top-rated TV drama Law & Order: SVU. But where the hype and the headlines end, the real story of Ice-T—the one few of his millions of fans have ever heard—truly begins.Ice...

In The 50th Law, hip hop and pop culture icon 50 Cent (aka Curtis Jackson) joins forces with Robert Greene, bestselling author of The 48 Laws of Power, to write a definitive business playbook for success in life and work based on a single principle: fear nothing. With stories from 50 Cent's life on the streets and in the boardroom as he rose to fame after the release of his album Get Rich or Die Tryin’, as well as examples of others who have overcome adversity th...

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An inspiring and riveting memoir from the most important woman in the history of television journalism.“A delightful tale of the golden age of television.... Juicy behind-the scenes details of the celebrities she’s interviewed, mixed in with stories of her own trials and tribulations.” —The Washington PostAfter more than fifty years of interviewing heads of state, world leaders, movie stars, criminals, murd...

One FBI Agent. One Boston Gangster. One Deal.The greatest and bloodiest story of corruption ever told.James 'Whitey' Bulger and John Connolly grew up together on the tough streets of South Boston. Decades later in the mid-1970s, they met again. By then, Connolly was a major figure in the FBI's Boston office and Whitey had become godfather of the Irish Mob. Connolly had an idea, a scheme that might bring Bulger into the FBI fold and John Connolly into the Bureau's big league...

A Crazed KillerHe dissolved the bodies of some of his victims in acid and poured them down the sewer. He hung grisly souvenirs on nails in his junkyard.La Costra NostraCharles Carneglia was a stone-cold killer who fell in with the bloodthirsty John Gotti crew. As the infamous crime family rose to power with their murderous trail of sex, jealousy, greed, and revenge, Carneglia rose with them.Mafia, Madness And Murder

The chilling true story of how the son of the most violent mobster in Chicago helped bring down the last great American crime syndicate: the one-hundred-year-old Chicago Outfit.In Operation Family Secrets, Frank Calabrese, Jr. reveals for the first time the outfit’s “made” ceremony and describes being put to work alongside his father and uncle in loan sharking, gambling, labor racketeering, and extortion. As members of the outfit, they plotted the slaying ...

When FBI Special Agent Joe Pistone began what was supposed to be a six-month operation infiltrating New York's Bonanno crime family in 1975, he had no idea what was about to happen.Posing as jewel thief “Donnie Brasco,” Pistone would spend the next six years undercover witnessing and sometimes participating in the Mafia's gruesome activities while gathering enough evidence to send over 200 gangsters to jail. Pistone told his story in the 1988 book Donnie Brasco-a N...