The Book of Jose
A Memoir
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Download titles to your library and listen offline
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The Book of Jose
Narrated by:
FAT JOE
Buy Now for ₹1,005.00
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Narrated by:
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FAT JOE
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Written by:
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FAT JOE
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Shaheem Reid
About this listen
“An adrenaline rush . . . buckle up and lean back.”—Spin
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.
Joe is born into a sprawling Puerto Rican and Cuban family in the projects of the South Bronx. From infancy his life is threatened by violence, and by the time he starts middle school, he is faced with the grim choice that defined a generation: to become predator or prey. Soon Joe and his crew dominate the streets, but he finds his true love among the park jams where the Bronx’s wild energy takes musical form. His identity splits in two: a hustler roaming record stores, looking for beats; and a budding rapper whose violent rep rings in the streets. As Joe’s day-to-day life becomes more fraught with betrayal, addiction, and death, until he himself is shot and almost killed, he gravitates toward the music that gives him both a voice to tell the stories of his young life and the tools he needs to create a new one. The challenges never stop—but neither does Joe.
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.
Critic Reviews
“Fat Joe opens the book like a blockbuster movie, packed with tales of violence, drug-dealing, fast cars, and more. . . . [His] career has had its highs and lows, and he describes each in equally painstaking detail. . . . Though the lessons he has learned never came easy, he writes about them with the directness of someone who has come to terms with them. . . . The way he tells his story so far, the author seems ready [to] make his next big move. Fat Joe’s memoir reads just like his hits sound, brimming with flashy style, street smarts, and survivor’s strength.”—Kirkus Reviews
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