Drugs, guns, hustle and flow

The allure of most gangsta rap for the middle-class white kids who listen to it is that, for four minutes at a time, they feel like the pimps and hustlers bumping through their systems. The likelihood that the rappers are actual pimps and hustlers is rather slim -- most are a comic book of street influences or personas ripped from Donald Goines' novels. It is this very intersection of mythology and violence that propels journalist Ethan Brown's impeccable history lesson about the drug gangs of Queens and the culture of rap in Queens Reigns Supreme: Fat Cat, 50 Cent And The Rise Of The Hip Hop Hustler.

With access to crime lords and rappers alike, Brown chronicles 25 years of hustling from a street-level perspective, entering into the worlds of Queens' three largest crime rings: The Nichols family, headlined by Fat Cat Nichols; The Supreme Team, led by Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff; and Thomas "Tony Montana" Mickens' cocaine empire -- as well as the hustlers of the rap game, Def Jam and Run-DMC, 50 Cent and Irv "Gotti" Lorenzo of Murder Inc. (who along with his brother Christopher was acquitted last week of federal money laundering charges). In the process, Brown draws clear lines between the real-life drug dealers and killers and the men who would later sing their songs. The result is an engrossing study of violence, allegiance and an insatiable lust for money that stretches from the lowest-level hustlers to the deaths of icons like 2Pac and Jam Master Jay, and the shooting of 50 Cent.

Brown's piece-by-piece breakdown of the rise and fall of the organized crime families of Queens in the 1980s is exhaustive and compelling. While the mythology of these gangs has filtered down through the years in the lyrics of popular rap songs, movies like New Jack City and even in the co-opted names rappers have christened themselves with (50 Cent, for instance, was originally the name of a psychotic hustler named Kelvin Martin), Brown takes the time to lay out how each family came to be and what, ultimately brought them down. The fall can be encompassed in one word: crack. The "don't get high on your own supply" edict rarely worked with crack, and what were once well-oiled crime machines became the province of paranoid killers -- a harsh change from what was, comparatively, an honest business of heroin and cocaine sales. Eventually, the heads of all the organizations landed jail terms that ceded their families to less-capable lieutenants.

Perhaps the most compelling of the big three -- though the one who has the smallest connection to the rap game later on -- is Mickens. Instead of staying true to the streets, as it were, Mickens branched out and began investing his money in real estate, legitimate businesses and, eventually, a swanky home in Diamond Bar, Calif. Perhaps his largest mistake was one of mere semantics: He named all of his businesses after his idol, Al Pacino's Tony Montana character from Scarface.

The second half of Queens focuses on the rise of Run-DMC and Def Jam in the '80s and the influx of gangster rappers like 50 Cent and the pop-influenced (though, as it would later turn out, crime-influenced via paroled business partner Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff) minds behind Murder Inc. in the last 10 years. The most interesting aspect is the first-person accounts from Russell Simmons and Daryl (DMC) McDaniels about the world swirling around them and the violence that would later claim the life of Jam Master Jay. Jay comes off as the biggest tragedy of all here -- a deeply loyal and troubled man often left in the background. Jay had a propensity for surrounding himself with shady friends and associates -- a propensity that seems to have led to his violent murder.

What separates Queens Reigns Supreme from the quickie biographies (and films and video games) generated about today's rap stars is the author himself. Brown doesn't fall prey to the romance of guns and money here; instead, the world he paints is one of Shakespearean tragedy. Though, Brown is quick to note, for stars like 50 Cent, that tragedy has formed an entirely new form of hustle -- one the American public purchases by the millions.

Queens Reigns Supreme: Fat Cat, 50 Cent and The Rise of the Hip Hop Hustler

Ethan Brown

288 pages

Anchor Books