Reviews

The book was personally an informative escape into the past. Growing up with the author brought back many delightful memories. An insightful look at the parallels of life and the world of Hip Hop.

Scars is great on several different levels. First, it's one of the first hip-hop memoirs (certain not to be the last). It reminded me of last year's Random Family but told from the perspective of Miles Marshall Lewis, a Bronx-born "bohemian B-boy" (his words) who also happens to have a Sociology degree. Any readers interested in books that chart what the young black man in America goes through will dig this, the same as Black Boy, Makes Me Wanna Holler, Finding Fish, Manchild in the Promised Land, etc. Hip-hop was bound to produce its own and here it is. Straight outta da Bronx, Miles Marshall Lewis sprung out of the same place and time as hip-hop did and he lays out the correlations well. Then, it reminds me of the plot to "Brown Sugar" as well: a XXL magazine editor (MML was once one, like Sanaa Lathan's character) gets fed up with hip-hop (aren't we all?) and writes a book about it. Scars is that book. As music journalism, Lewis digs a little deeper than the magazines he's known for writing for by taking KRS-One's popular "I am hip-hop" perspective and injecting personal tidbits of Bronx flashbacks. Finally, his few insights on spirituality (the "Soul" in the title is no accident) and independent thinking are also noteworthy, above and beyond hip-hop. Scars was a good one. I expected maybe yet another "hip-hop rules! take us seriously!" book, and was pleasantly surprised.

Scars of the Soul Are Why Kids Wear Bandages When They Don't Have Bruises is divided in two: Memory Lanes and Gun Hill Roads (Part I), and The Def of Hip-Hop (Part II). In Part I, author Miles Marshall Lewis takes a hip-hop Slouching Towards Bethlehem approach, explaining his own life in terms of hip-hop culture. Before breaking down his dad's addiction to cocaine and heroin in "The Suckerpunch of My Childhood Files," Lewis alludes to the fact that the fathers of Nas and Jay-Z both struggled with coke and heroin, and that a greater understanding of MCs and men of the hip-hop generation in general can be reached when we understand the fathers' influence (a brilliant observation). Like Woody Allen in Zelig, Lewis seems to be present at many key moments of the golden age of hip-hop: waving his hands in the air at the Krush Groove X-Mas Party concert; dancing in a Doug E. Fresh video; smoking herb with Erykah Badu in Fort Greene, Brooklyn; signing the Hip-Hop Declaration of Peace at the United Nations alongside hip-hop's pioneers. These details were fascinating to me, particularly because 1) my first hip-hop album was Doggystyle by Snoop Dogg, 2) I'm white, and 3) I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, nowhere near the birthplace of hip-hop. Scars is highbrow, researched, and really quite witty.

In movie-pitch terms, this 1st book by Miles Marshall Lewis is a cross betweeen Antwoine Fisher's Finding Fish and Charlie Ahearn's Yes Yes Y'all, with a little Best American Essays flavor. Lewis's details about his dad's bout with heroin, his birds-eye view of hip-hop bubbling outside the South Bronx neighborhoods he grew up in, and the book's "hip-hop is dead" thesis make for an engaging and often hilarious reading experience. If that little kid from The Boondocks cartoon grows up to become a music journalist, he'll be Miles Marshall Lewis. Strongly recommended for those who feel like hip-hop has gone down the toilet and wonder what happened, as well as people who dig memoirs like Richard Wright's Black Boy.

Reviews

Got these for our daughter, who is a freshman at very cold/snowy Oswego State (I was drawn to them by my memories of my own leg warmers from the late 70's/early 80's)! She loves the retro look, plus they do help keep her warm as she trudges from class to class! Only downside was we had to get her new "skinny leg" jeans to complement the look! Good quality; great color, hold their elasticity well, and very prompt delivery. No dancing genes in this family, but we would definitely consider doing business with KD dance again...

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