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Publisher:
William Morrow |
Release
Date: March 2, 2004 |
ISBN:
0-06-000462-2 |
Awards:
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Format
Reviewed: Hardcover |
Buy
it at Amazon |
Read
an Excerpt |
Genre:
Mystery/Suspense |
Reviewed:
2004 |
Reviewer:
Kristin Johnson |
Reviewer
Notes: Review One
Review
Three
Reviewer Kristin Johnson
is the author of CHRISTMAS COOKIES ARE FOR GIVING, co-written
with Mimi Cummins and ORDINARY MIRACLES: My Incredible Spiritual,
Artistic and Scientific Journey, co-written with Sir Rupert
A.L. Perrin, M.D. |
Copyright
MyShelf.com |
|
Dirty
South
By Ace Atkins
Dirty
South starts out with the
premise “What would you do if you only had twenty-four hours
to save the life of a friend?” That’s the rap teaser.
Rhythm and blues takes its time, and unlike rap, it sings about
real things. As fictional blues legend JoJo says, “Rap doesn’t
elevate us…Money, money, money. Trashy women. That’s
not music. Glorifies people being ignorant. Blues is music.”
Tell
it to fifteen-year-old rapper named Alias, who started life abandoned
by his mother, a drug addict and prostitute and got a dose of reality
when his friends conned him. When you come from nothing, become
a millionaire with a lakefront mansion in your teens, then have
respect, women, money, song and fame yanked away from you because
of cross-town rivals, you sing the why-me blues.
JoJo
and Ace Atkins’s hero, Nick Travers, aren’t listening.
The old man, who sits nightly drinking beer on his porch with his
wife Loretta, waxes cautionary about rap: “That music is against
God. Makes thugs into heroes, women into things, and money above
all.”
Perhaps.
And as Nick discovers, loyalty to a former football teammate means
about as much as a Jennifer Lopez marriage in the world of Dr. Dre
and P. Diddy. However, when you can make a novel about rap sound
like a 1930’s blues song mourning popular culture, yet acknowledging
its siren’s smile of groups such as Alias that lures children,
rappers and the rap culture are elevated into understanding as opposed
to glorification.
Even
the customary race complaints strike no sour notes here. Teddy Paris,
Nick’s former teammate, says to white Nick, “You got
to know what it feels like to walk into a restaurant or bar or Saks
or some shit and have people not wait on you…I wear the car,
the jewelry, the two-thousand-dollar suit that makes people respect
me.”
Nick
reminds him of the Ludacris wannabes spending their parents’
hard-earned cash on an Alias album. Alias discovers he likes Nick,
Jojo and Loretta’s dose of blues reality. Nick escapes from
Teddy Paris’s world and also finds home. This mystery sings
truth to power.
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