Scars of the Soul Are Why Kids Wear Bandages When They Don't Have Bruises

Scars of the Soul Are Why Kids Wear Bandages When They Don't Have Bruises is a confessional, stylistic account (in the Joan Didion tradition) of coming of age in the Bronx alongside the birth and evolution of hip-hop culture. This essay collection presents a journalistic mosaic of seminal figures in hip-hop, documentary essays exploring the social decay of hip-hop, and a substantial element of memoir, as well as observations on the generational issues of urban America.

Scars captures the political ambitions of Russell Simmons, the Black Spades gang foundation of Afrika Bambaataa and the Universal Zulu Nation, the spiritual sensibility of KRS-One and the Temple of Hip-Hop, and a keynoted debate on the materialistic, violent direction of hip-hop culture. Interpreting the mood and inner-city atmosphere that caused the counterculture of hip-hop, Bronx native Miles Marshall Lewis details the circumstances of his father's heroin addiction, his mother's Southern spirituality, his grandfather's career as a Harlem numbers runner, and his own journey from a tenement-building upbringing to worldwide travels--with hip-hop trailing his steps.

An incisive look at contemporary urban American life, Scars exposes the motivations and aspirations of a culture whose spiritual center was the Bronx.