She wanted to be a hip-hop star but the streets got in the way. Have you ever laid down with a man and wasn’t sure if you’d ever get back up? Tossed the sheets with a bone-knocking fear that only a hard-core hustler could produce? Sexed him like your life depended on it, because in reality it did? You still with me? Then let’s roll over to my house. Harlem. 145th Street. Grab a seat and brace yourself as I show you the kind of pain that street life and so-called success can bring. . . . Nineteen-year-old Candy Raye Montana, an ex—drug runner for the Gabriano crime family and a former foster child, dreams of becoming a hip-hop superstar, if only someone will discover her talents. Someone does. Mega music producer and king thug of Harlem, Junius “Hurricane” Jackson, CEO of the House of Homicide recording studio, cuts a deal and puts Candy on the stage. Suddenly she is a hot new artist on the notorious Homicide Hitz record label. Her career takes off and she blazes the charts, but it’s not long before Candy realizes that the man she thought was her knight is nothing more than a cold-blooded nightmare. Caught between the music and the madness, between the dollars and the deals, Candy belongs to Hurricane—body and soul—and must endure his sadistic bedroom desires while keeping his sexual secrets hidden from the world. But Candy has some strong desires of her own that simply cannot be denied, especially when she finds herself turned on by a brilliant investment baller who just happens to be Hurricane’s right-hand man. Candy longs for her freedom, but if Hurricane gets wind of her betrayal the blowback will be lethal—and not only will she risk losing her recording contract, she just might lose her life.

From the concert stage to the dressing room, from the recording studio to the digital realm, SPIN surveys the modern musical landscape and the culture around it with authoritative reporting, provocative interviews, and a discerning critical ear. With dynamic photography, bold graphic design, and informed irreverence, the pages of SPIN pulsate with the energy of today's most innovative sounds. Whether covering what's new or what's next, SPIN is your monthly VIP pass to all that rocks.

Reviews and rates the best recordings of 8,900 blues artists in all styles.

There were good times and bad times, but in the beginning there were more good times. When I first met Candy those were the days of juice, when everything was bountiful. Only much later did it all start to seem like sugar and blood, blood and sugar...It's like you're cruising along in a beautiful car on a pleasant country road with the breeze in your hair and the smell of eucalyptus all around you. The horizon is always up there ahead, unfolding towards you, and at first you don't notice the gradual descent, or the way the atmosphere thickens. Bit by bit the gradient gets steeper, and before you realise you have no brakes, you're going pretty fucking fast.' Candy is a love story. It is also a novel about addiction. From the heady narcissism of the narrator's first days with his new lover, Candy, and the relative innocence of their shared habit, Candy charts their decline. Candy becomes a prostitute, the narrator becomes a scam artist, and smack becomes the total and only focus of their lives. But this is not just another junkie novel: Davies is a very fine writer and Candy is confronting, painful, sexy, tender and at times darkly hilarious. A remarkable novel.

In this gritty urban drama by the New York Times bestselling author of Honor Thy Thug, a woman who has everything has everything to lose. Brianna and Shan couldn't be more different. Brianna believes that men were born to bankroll her lifestyle—from her $1,200 weave to her closet full of Gucci, Prada, and Chanel. Shan prefers Fubu to Jimmy Choo, and she prefers to buy it with her own money, even if it means working at a men's prison. Still, despite their differences, Shan and B are sisters where it counts. Or so they think . . . For B, lying is part of the hustle. She couldn't care less who gets hurt along the way, as long as it isn't her. But hustling tricks is one thing. Betraying the one person who really cares about you is quite another. When one of B's schemes goes too far, blood is spilled—and Shan is caught in the crossfire. Now, with friendship and lives on the line, Brianna's got one last chance to change her ways—or suffer the consequences . . .

“Have you ever wanted something so bad you was willing to crawl over bodies to get it? I mean, fiend for it so hard it didn’t matter who you hurt, how low you had to scrape, it was gonna be yours? That’s what music and balling did for me. They were the fundamentals behind my rise . . . and the perpetrators of my fall. They called me Harlem’s black prince–a rising star who carried street dreams on his back. But the streets, ya know. They got a way of coming for theirs. A method of sneaking up on you when you ain’t looking . . .” Andre “Thug-A-Licious” Williams came up on Harlem’s meanest streets. But thanks to his nearly ankle-breaking hoop moves and explosive mic skills, he makes it out–and dominates the rap scene with chart-topping urban hits. Thug has sexed all the hottest freaks and has a slew of baby mamas to show for it. But no matter how many women he takes to his bed, only one can claim his heart: successful beauty salon owner Carmiesha “Lil Muddah” Vernoy, his ride-or-die queen who has stuck by his side and guarded his back through thick and thin. But Thug also has a nightmarish history with someone else. Pimp Williams, his older cousin and ex—partner in crime, is a cold-blooded killer who spreads havoc all over Harlem and will stop at nothing to get what he wants–even if it means betraying his own family, crushing Carmiesha, and forcing Harlem’s black prince down to his knees and back to his bloody beginnings. “Urban erotica has never been hotter!” –Nikki Turner, author of Riding Dirty on I-95

The Routledge Dictionary of Modern American Slang and Unconventional English offers the ultimate record of modern American Slang. The 25,000 entries are accompanied by citations that authenticate the words as well as offer lively examples of usage from popular literature, newspapers, magazines, movies, television shows, musical lyrics, and Internet user groups. Etymology, cultural context, country of origin and the date the word was first used are also provided. This informative, entertaining and sometimes shocking dictionary is an unbeatable resource for all language aficionados out there.