Summary
Summary
Ja Rule, actor, singer, songwriter, and one of the most multi-dimensional rap artists of his time, tells his compelling story--from his youth to his rise to international fame to his transformative two years in Federal prison--and reveals the man beneath the legend.
Unruly is two stories that offer one complete picture of a man and his world: the angry, fatherless rapper, Ja Rule who was "raised by the streets"; and Jeffrey Atkins, the insightful, reflective father and loyal husband who learned the hard way how to be a good man.
Filled with never-before-revealed anecdotes and sixteen pages of black-and-white photos, Unruly shows the determination that it takes to become a man in today's society. Ja Rule considers the lack of role models for many young black men today--a void that leads to bad choices and the wrong paths. Recalling his youth, he illuminates the seductive pull of the streets and the drug dealers who were his earliest role models.
Jeffrey Atkins offers practical wisdom--reflection, growth and hope learned first-hand as an inmate, father, husband, and community role model. He speaks fondly of men who inspired Unruly--the inmates he met in prison whose misguided ideas of masculinity landed them behind bars--and Louis Farrakhan who mediated the televised encounter with Ja Rule's adversary, 50 Cent.
Unruly is a compelling, personal look at the duality and conflicts that arise in the African-American male psyche from a man who has enjoyed breathtaking fame and suffered heartbreaking misfortune.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this memoir, Ja Rule, an internationally known rapper-actor, offers revealing insights into his life, including a bitter lockdown at Oneida Correctional Facility in upstate New York, as well as escapades in his hometown of Queens, N.Y., where he enjoyed pot-smoking, easy sex, and the lure of the gang life in the projects. Yet he survived the hazards of drug dealing to emerge as a defining force in hip-hop, featuring political and cultural messages in his sound. A high school dropout, the entertainer, now 38 years old, first won roaring success in 1999 when his debut album Venni Vetti Vecci sold nearly two million copies. At that time, he joined the legendary 1999 Hard Knock Tour with DMX, Jay Z, Redman, and Method Man; he feuded with fellow rapper 50 Cent-a feud that only ended when Minister Louis Farrakhan brokered a truce; experienced a career downturn; and received death threats from old rivals in the drug game. Ja Rule's candid, unvarnished view of guns, drugs, depression, fame, lust, love, and family and that makes this a remarkable memoir and a worthy read. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Ja Rule, aka Jeffrey Atkins, was a guest performer at rapper Lil Wayne's show at the Beacon Theater in New York when his $400,000 Maybach was pulled over, and he was arrested for gun possession. No stranger to legal troubles, he got sober while doing time, and this memoir is his attempt to make sense of his past poverty, sexual addiction, and drug use and how those things led to both his success and his undoing. Each chapter, ending in a handwritten letter from prison, is a snapshot of his youth that is both agonizing and cliched. A high-school drop-out, Ja Rule sold crack and began to work on the rhymes that would make him famous, and therein is the rub: the roles were intertwined. One senses that he wanted to be more than a rich hustler through fun wordplay: I yearned to do a more artistic and far-reaching album. But he leaves the creative process relatively unexamined, even though he does illuminate how rap artists improvise on key themes with a street twist in rhyming streams-of-consciousness.--Eleveld, Mark Copyright 2010 Booklist