MANFRED KNOPF

“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.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 was 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 forced to make a life-shaping choice: to be prey or predator. Soon, Joe and his crew rise up to dominate the streets?dodging bullets and betrayal all along the way?but he discovers his true strength in the street ”

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