To all the readers out there, are there any good hip hop biographies out there.

I've read Jay-z decoded as well as DMX's which was pretty entertaining.

Any other good reads out there? I've heard good things about J-Zones as well.

Common's "One Day It'll All Make Sense"

even though it's a bit outdated at this point; it came out during his No Limit days so reading it now you're obviously missing a huge (and important) chunk of his career.

But his stories from his childhood and high school are pretty great. I specifically remember one, just weeks before he was scheduled to graduate, when he said he had given up hope about school and so he went into homeroom that day and lit a blunt. When his homeroom teacher approached him, he tried to "hand it to her cause she looked like she wanted a pull," or some shit. Hahaha. Pretty funny. Obviously he got kicked out.

which is written by 2pac's bodyguard during his deathrow days, it's pretty good.

but I cant reccomend any good/great ones

I have a problem w hip hop books in general being written in 24 point type and being written to the level of a 8th grader

The Common and Ice T bios were both read the same day. Neither revealed anything I didnt already know (altho the Ice T bio was a bit more enjoyable for the jewelry heist stories)and both were disappointing.

Those are my sentiments for almost all the hip hop bios Ive read

Yea, that's how I feel. I read a lot of biographies and this is the main reason I haven't read that many hip hop bios. Jay's and the Wu manual where pretty entertaining because they broke down their business plans, analyzed their rhymes and had pretty interesting back stories but neither one was really well written. I think it took me less than a day to finish both of them.

Is Quest still comming out with a book? That'd be dope on him going into his musical influences more than anything else.

The best music bio I've read is the Slash biography.

that really "digs in" to an artist that I don't care for (like Slash) than a so-so bio on an artist Im into

I enjoy bios in general for this inspiration. ive never read a hip hop bio that inspired me to do anything but stop reading it

Word. I've been watching some of the red bull music academy interviews with De La, Tribe and Doom n it got me wanting to pick up a good hip hop bio. I guess I'll stick to the interviews for now.

but I HIGHLY recommend 'Can't Stop Won't Stop' by Jeff Chang for a sweeping, all-encompassing look at (the origins of) Hip Hop in general. Really good read there.

Yea I've heard a lot of good things about this. Been meaning to check this out for a while now.

when i took my hip-hop college class, jeff chang came to speak and signed everyone's book. cool guy.