eddie

In the city of San Francisco, there are four families who are at the top of their game. The Best family, The Ramirez family, The Williams family, and The Vick family, were all major factors when it came to getting that money. No matter what it was these families could provide it. Having certain rules set in place kept all four families solid in the way things moved on the streets. Rules are made to be broken, and when they do, all bets are off. No longer is the brotherhood reading from the same page, now it was every family for themselves.

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. 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.