A wild ride. This is the phrase that personifies Ghosts On The Block Never Sleep.
Hip hop heads are definitely in for a tale of the unexpected. Forget what’s mentioned about Chicago in classic rap songs and what you see on the news. A cheesy hour long mixtape mystery with a feel good ending this book definitely ain’t.
Think along the lines of the 36 Chambers of Survival. The 48 Laws Of The Street.
Raw, visceral, and cerebral while sober is what Chicago native Tia Ja’nae has cooked up in this book. It’s the perfect rhyme to a broken beat looking for sync. First thing that will grab you is the cover. Italy’s homegrown artist Carmelo Guarnera painted an homage worthy of a white subway train. Staring at it is like putting the key into an ignition and starting it up.
Tags are showing and hinting at the blood in the streets flowing. Let’s hit it.
Picture it; a tale of woe on the east side of Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. It’s a word within a world, a neighborhood left by city politics to go into urban blight. White flight happened long ago and the Black people that are stuck there today are left to fend for themselves in a de facto police state that favors the criminals that control it with City Hall’s blessing.
The world Common bragged about in Like Water For Chocolate doesn’t exist anymore.
Streets are dirty, quality of life is nasty. In the middle is a cool little chick thrown back to hell by pride, stubbornness, and circumstance. She gets it in getting her money too. Back in the day she chopped up meat until the pink slip rolled through. Present day she making street moves to pull a bag and pay bills. Nobody know who she is. She just on the grind looking for a come up.
Chicago don’t care who she is or where she came from.
Making moves in the street puts a little dough under the pillow. Streets is watching and giving progress reports. Short on time and options she runs the hustle until the past, present, and future come crashing down on her head. The ending is ruthless. Brace yourself for a blow to the head that burns a permanent tattoo of horror into your psyche like the Joker did on Robin.
No spoilers but a quick disclaimer – being stuck in a locked funhouse with a masked serial killer that could put Michael Myers to shame pales in comparison to the conclusion. The Alfred Hitchcock dark hip hop psychological terror vibe we’re left to contend with for closure does little to soothe the nerves or the soul.
Yes, people, Ghosts On The Block Never Sleep is scary as all get out. It’s also one of the best fictitious conclusions written about the consequences of staying in the game past your welcome or your prime. The unexpected is terrifyingly realistic and deliberately brutal son. Six degrees of separation follow everybody and the butterfly effect alters everyone’s lives for better or worse.
2Pac once rapped that Donald Goines was his father. Tia Ja’nae would be his sister. Next time when you pick up Goines, pick this up. An extraordinary wild ride about an ordinary all American hood chick who realizes too late that America eats its young with a Coke and a smile.
That’s it, that’s all.