Nearly thirty years ago, Ernie Paniccioli, considered by many to be the James Van Der Zee of the hiphop generation, began photographing graffiti art throughout New York City as well as the young people creating it. Armed with a 35-millimeter camera, Paniccioli literally recorded the beginning salvos of hiphop, today the most dominant youth culture on the planet. Be it Grandmaster Flash at the Roxy, a summer block party in the Bronx, the fresh faces of Jay-Z and Will Smith, the cocksure personas of Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., and Eminem, or the regal grace of Lauryn Hill, Ernie Paniccioli has been there to showcase hiphop’s emerging talent. With more than 200 photographs that have been culled from a vast archive, Who Shot Ya? is the first major pictorial history of hiphop culture.

Snitching is the new side hustle. Unfortunately for the Wests, the alphabet boys are always hiring: no experience is needed. After the melee on the Westside of Manhattan, the government is no longer playing fair. The FBI and DEA compete to ensnare the West organization into a trap blurring the boundaries of what's legal, moral, and ethical. And with the once tight-knit family bifurcated, their power weakened by dissension; the cartel mobilizes to finally end the Wests reign at the top. Meyer, not ready to put his temper on pause, has a lot of scores to settle. However, a significant blow to their empire has him handcuffed and wondering how to process his new normal. With the losses adding up and bodies piling up, will the West family realize that all they have is each other?

The third in this spine-tingling YA trilogy starring the classic girl detectives from Mystery, Inc.! There are a lot of secrets buried in the town of Crystal Cove. And the biggest case of all still remains unsolved... why did the town's original settlers all disappear? What happened to them? Velma is determined to find out... especially because her family's ancestors were among the disappeared. And now that she and Daphne have started to get a reputation for solving mysteries, everyone in town is looking to them for answers. But digging up the past can be dangerous... especially when some people in town have profited from the mystery for so long. Can these two intrepid teen detectives crack the case... and escape with their lives?

Your favorite couple is back! Destiny and Trent are now proud parents of a beautiful baby girl named Tressanne. The next step for them is about to be marriage. Sounds simple enough, right? Trent proposes to the love of his life, Destiny, a changed man. He is no longer a stripper at The Stallion Club and is the proud owner of Heaven's Auto Shop. But of course, nothing ever comes easy his way! A string of bad luck and unforeseen circumstances lead Trent into a bad financial situation. With his wedding day quickly approaching, he sees no other choice but to start stripping again! The only problem is that Destiny doesn't know about it. Will he be able to pull off the ultimate betrayal? Or will this be the end of our beloved couple? Read what happens to see if these two are finally able to have their Hood Wedding.

Covering the grown of twentieth-century American popular music, this work explores the question of why some music styles attain mass popularity while others thrive in small niches.

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. “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.

Tracing the careers of hip-hop's three most dynamic stars, this deeply reported history brilliantly examines the entrepreneurial genius of the first musician tycoons: Diddy, Dr. Dre, and Jay-Z. Being successful musicians was simply never enough for the three kings of hip-hop. Diddy, Dr. Dre, and Jay-Z lifted themselves from childhood adversity into tycoon territory, amassing levels of fame and wealth that not only outshone all other contemporary hip-hop artists, but with a combined net worth of well over $2 billion made them the three richest American musicians, period. Yet their fortunes have little to do with selling their own albums: between Diddy's Ciroc vodka, Dre's $3 billion sale of his Beats headphones to Apple, and Jay-Z's Tidal streaming service and other assets, these artists have transcended pop music fame to become lifestyle icons and moguls. Hip-hop is no longer just a musical genre; it's become a way of life that encompasses fashion, film, food, drink, sports, electronics and more -- one that has opened new paths to profit and to critical and commercial acclaim. Thanks in large part to the Three Kings -- who all started their own record labels and released classic albums before moving on to become multifaceted businessmen -- hip-hop has been transformed from a genre spawned in poverty into a truly global multibillion-dollar industry. These men are the modern embodiment of the American Dream, but their stories as great thinkers and entrepreneurs have yet to be told in full. Based on a decade of reporting, and interviews with more than 100 sources including hip-hop pioneers Russell Simmons and Fab 5 Freddy; new-breed executives like former Def Jam chief Kevin Liles and venture capitalist Troy Carter; and stars from Swizz Beatz to Shaquille O'Neal, 3 Kings tells the fascinating story of the rise and rise of the three most influential musicians in America.