When Denim's husband Bradley is released from prison after being accused of raping her sister, Denim is hopeful that they can work on rebuilding their marriage. That seems impossible when her dysfunctional mother Sarah moves into the Kennedy bunker, bringing with her disgusting habits and distasteful opinions. If Denim's mother was the least of her concerns life might not be so difficult. Unfortunately between Bradley's overbearing personality and the Russian Cartel's looming attack, Denim can't seem to catch a break. "Pretty Kings 3" explodes with drama of the future due to secrets from the past.
A powerful memoir of redemption from the son of blues legend John Lee Hooker Born in Detroit and exposed to the music world from an early age, John Lee Hooker Jr. began singing as a featured attraction in his father’s shows as a teenager. His father was a sharecropper’s son who became known for hit songs like “Boogie Chillin,” “I’m in the Mood,” and “Boom Boom,” and in 1972, he and his father performed live and recorded an album in Soledad Prison. Junior seemed to have a golden ticket to a successful music career as a child, but trouble brewed as his father’s marriage was in trouble and ripped apart the family. Drug addiction and a series of related crimes, including as a con player, landed Junior in and out of jails & prisons for several decades. An early brush with the law led to a sentence at Synanon, the infamous drug rehabilitation program turned religious cult. Later arrests resulted in time served in prisons including at Soledad, San Quentin, and Avenal. Shot, stabbed, and convicted multiple times, Junior was at his lowest point doing time at a Santa Rita jail, but it was at that moment that he found the Lord. He emerged clean and sober and began a successful career as a blues singer, earning two Grammy nominations as well as the Bobby “Blue” Bland Lifetime Achievement Award. He eventually devoted himself fully to his faith. Reverend John Lee Hooker Jr. testifies, preaches, and performs gospel music in churches and prisons in both Germany and America.
In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Dapper Dan is a legend, an icon, a beacon of inspiration to many in the Black community. His story isn’t just about fashion. It’s about tenacity, curiosity, artistry, hustle, love, and a singular determination to live our dreams out loud.”—Ava DuVernay, director of Selma, 13th, and A Wrinkle in Time NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY VANITY FAIR • DAPPER DAN NAMED ONE OF TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD With his now-legendary store on 125th Street in Harlem, Dapper Dan pioneered high-end streetwear in the 1980s, remixing classic luxury-brand logos into his own innovative, glamorous designs. But before he reinvented haute couture, he was a hungry boy with holes in his shoes, a teen who daringly gambled drug dealers out of their money, and a young man in a prison cell who found nourishment in books. In this remarkable memoir, he tells his full story for the first time. Decade after decade, Dapper Dan discovered creative ways to flourish in a country designed to privilege certain Americans over others. He witnessed, profited from, and despised the rise of two drug epidemics. He invented stunningly bold credit card frauds that took him around the world. He paid neighborhood kids to jog with him in an effort to keep them out of the drug game. And when he turned his attention to fashion, he did so with the energy and curiosity with which he approaches all things: learning how to treat fur himself when no one would sell finished fur coats to a Black man; finding the best dressed hustler in the neighborhood and converting him into a customer; staying open twenty-four hours a day for nine years straight to meet demand; and, finally, emerging as a world-famous designer whose looks went on to define an era, dressing cultural icons including Eric B. and Rakim, Salt-N-Pepa, Big Daddy Kane, Mike Tyson, Alpo Martinez, LL Cool J, Jam Master Jay, Diddy, Naomi Campbell, and Jay-Z. By turns playful, poignant, thrilling, and inspiring, Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem is a high-stakes coming-of-age story spanning more than seventy years and set against the backdrop of an America where, as in the life of its narrator, the only constant is change. Praise for Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem “Dapper Dan is a true one of a kind, self-made, self-liberated, and the sharpest man you will ever see. He is couture himself.”—Marcus Samuelsson, New York Times bestselling author of Yes, Chef “What James Baldwin is to American literature, Dapper Dan is to American fashion. He is the ultimate success saga, an iconic fashion hero to multiple generations, fusing street with high sartorial elegance. He is pure American style.”—André Leon Talley, Vogue contributing editor and author
***FULL STANDALONE*** Aashiem Cazier grew up in a household with his father, who happens to be the chief of police, his mother, and two sisters. His middle-class upbringing is a far cry from the life that most of his peers lived in the hood, but his family's social status didn't stop Aashiem's love for fast money and his fascination with the allure of the game. Tired of being broke and under the roof of his strict father, on his eighteenth birthday, Aashiem takes part in a caper that changes the course of the rest of his life. Once life begins to change for Aashiem, he meets a beautiful self-made shawty with the Nola accent: Hysia. The slightly older woman is a bit intimidating but too intriguing for Aashiem to pass by. With a lot to learn about grown women and facing the obstacles that come along with getting his weight up, Aashiem soon learns that you can't play kid games with grown women and to watch who he calls a friend. A friend may be the very thing to cause the demise of Aashiem's relationship with Hysia and take his freedom, if it doesn't kill him first. Hysia was seven years old when Hurricane Katrina hit, and she watched her mother die right in front of her. At the age of eighteen, she becomes responsible for her younger sister, Hydia, and hustler becomes Hysia's middle name. She believes in securing her own bag and not having to depend on anybody for anything. Putting her dreams on hold, she goes hard to send her sister off to college. Hysia wasn't looking for love when she met the caramel colored, dreaded up Aashiem, but he was too charming for her to resist. Even after several red flags were noticed, Hysia couldn't break free from the spell that was him. Hysia is as strong as they come, but she has one weakness. Something that only she and her sister know about. It's the very thing that makes Hysia terrified of being alone. That vulnerability allows her to fall hard for Aashiem. So hard that when she finds out about a secret that he's been keeping, it literally feels like she's dying inside, but somehow, she must pick up the pieces. Love isn't always pretty. But if it's true love, it will always prevail.
In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.
Goodfellas meets Savages meets Catch Me If You Can in this true tale of high-stakes smuggling from pot’s outlaw years. Richard Stratton was the unlikeliest of kingpins. A clean-cut Wellesley boy who entered outlaw culture on a trip to Mexico, he saw his search for a joint morph into a thrill-filled dope run smuggling two kilos across the border in his car door. He became a member of the Hippie Mafia, traveling the world to keep America high, living the underground life while embracing the hippie credo, rejecting hard drugs in favor of marijuana and hashish. With cameos by Whitey Bulger and Norman Mailer, Smuggler’s Blues tells Stratton’s adventure while centering on his last years as he travels from New York to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to source and smuggle high-grade hash in the midst of civil war, from the Caribbean to the backwoods of Maine, and from the Chelsea Hotel to the Plaza as his fortunes rise and fall. All the while he is being pursued by his nemesis, a philosophical DEA agent who respects him for his good business practices. A true-crime story that reads like fiction, Smuggler’s Blues is a psychedelic road trip through international drug smuggling, the hippie underground, and the war on weed. As Big Marijuana emerges, it brings to vivid life an important chapter in pot’s cultural history.
THE MAJOR IMAGE COMICS EVENT OF 2021 CONTINUES… Desperate to escape the Wizard's magical assassin, Hope Redhood, Cor, Castrum, Dena, and Rosa seek safe harbor with the crime lord and self-proclaimed deity Romulus. But will Hope and Romulus’s turbulent history doom the rest of the crew? And can even a demi-god in super powered armor stop the Wizard’s relentless daughter? And what has happened to Rabbit?
