In Young, Black, Rich, and Famous, Todd Boyd chronicles how basketball and hip hop have gone from being reviled by the American mainstream in the 1970s to being embraced and imitated globally today. For young black men, he argues, they represent a new version of the American dream, one embodying the hopes and desires of those excluded from the original version. Shedding light on both perception and reality, Boyd shows that the NBA has been at the forefront of recognizing and incorporating cultural shifts-from the initial image of 1970s basketball players as overpaid black drug addicts, to...

An irreverent plunge into the world of 1970's faux revolution and lifestyle. Described as "Kerouacian' and "Big Lebowski" like but the author states that's unintentional. Not for the true believer. Todd Boyd's Marat, Untrue Loves is part-Kerouacian, part-Hemingway, but all Boyd. Marat is a journey through life, love and politics told in insightful, and often poetic, vignettes. Boyd does a good job of giving us a revolution through the thoughts and eyes of the philosophical Marat. If you're looking for sex, drugs and rock 'n roll, you're looking in all the wrong places. Marat is more sex,...