J. Ivy

Despite the fact that I am not a hip-hop fan, I really enjoyed this book. I am actually not much of a poetry person either, I guess, though there are exceptions. I much prefer a dramatic electric guitar solo over a spoken poetry bridge, and where I grew up the race issues and class issues centered around our Hispanic population and the way non-Hispanic people reacted to that portion of our community, resulting in a different culture from what J.Ivy is responding to with his poetry. So, I am not likely to be buying any J.Ivy albums after reading his book.

But, the nice thing about a book is that it steps outside the musical genre of the musician who wrote it. The ideas and feelings that J. Ivy writes about are more universally understandable, and I was quite impressed with how beautifully articulate this author is in his prose. This book is a memoir, incorporating poetry, and explores the author's relationship with his father, how he became a successful hip-hop artist, and lots in between. I like that this book is a bit performative as well, with several links included to performances of poems in the text.

My copy of this book, which I won through a Goodreads First Reads giveaway, will be going next to my hip-hop artist brother, who will no doubt get a lot more out of this book than I did, but I definitely think this book is a great read for a much broader audience than just the hip-hop community.… (mehr)