Original Gangstas!
Street lit, street fiction, urban fiction, or whatever people are calling today is taking over. Readers can’t seem to consume enough of gritty the stories. Well, author Seth Ferranti takes readers behind the scenes in his second installment of “Street Legends.” Volume 2 features `Black Caesar’ Frank Matthews, who dominated the heroin market in New York in the 70s; Maurice `Peanut’ King, one of the biggest street legends in Baltimore’s history; Michael `Fray’ Salters, known as the Ambassador of Chocolate City, he was feared, trusted and respected; The Boobie Boys, one of Miami’s most savage drug gangs; The Short North Posse, a crew out of Columbus, Ohio that lived by the code of the streets and kept it old school; and The New World of Islam, a Muslim sect that advocated black superiority funded by armed robberies.
This isn’t fiction. This is real life. This is the stuff those stories are based on. Through their own words, words of those that were around at the time, the media and court records, Ferranti recounts the history of some of the most notorious. The section I found particularly interesting and also ironic involves a well-known street lit publisher and author that helped in the downfall of one crew by becoming a government witness, a clear contradiction of the genre, to reduce her own sentence.
Real, raw and very easy to read, “Street Legends Vol 2” should be on your shelf.
Reviewed by: Tracy