Showing results by narrator "Landon Woodson" in All Categories

For fourteen years, Charlamagne Tha God has been cohost of iHeartRadio’s nationally syndicated morning radio show The Breakfast Club and has proven his power as a culture mover and thought leader, by being his completely authentic self on-air, from his famous “You ain't black” moment with President Biden, to heartfelt chats with cultural icons like Sean “Jay-Z” Carter and Judy Blume, to viral classics with Kamala Harris and Soulja Boy, his incredible reach and impact on the pulse of America continues to grow.

Dennis Coles—aka Ghostface Killah—is a co-founder of the Wu-Tang Clan, a legendary hip hop group who established themselves by breaking all the rules, taking their music to the streets during hip hop’s golden era on a decade-long wave of releasing anthem after classic anthem, and serving as the foundation of modern hip hop. An all-star cast who formed like Voltron to establish the pillars that serve as the foundation of modern hip hop and released seminal albums that have stood the test of time.

Do you feel demotivated and aimless? Are you running on empty? Is it hard to pinpoint what's wrong? This is an experience millions of us are struggling with, and until now, we've lacked the vocabulary to understand it. But Dr Corey Keyes has identified this feeling as languishing, and here he draws on the latest research and real-life case studies to trace its spread to a level of global epidemic, asking the fundamental question of how we find lasting wellbeing.

Timmy Failure is not just any detective - he is the greatest detective in his town, perhaps the nation. He is so famous that there have been seven books written about his life. Plus a movie. And so he has agreed to provide the world with his extraordinary origin story, as dictated to his biographer and best friend, Charles "Rollo" Tookus.

For Nipsey Hussle, “The Marathon” was more than a mixtape title or the name of a clothing store; it was a way of life, a metaphor for the relentless pursuit of excellence and the willpower required to overcome adversity day after day. Hussle was determined to win the race to success on his own terms, and he wanted to see his whole community in the winner’s circle with him.

Synthetic biology promises to reveal how life is created and how it can be re-created, enabling scientists to rewrite the rules of our reality. It could help us, for example, heal without prescription medications, grow meat without harvesting animals, or confront our looming climate catastrophe. Synthetic biology will determine the ways in which we conceive future generations and how we define family, how we identify disease and treat aging, where we make our homes, and how we nourish ourselves.

There are rappers that everyone loves, and there are rappers that every rapper loves, and Corey Woods, a.k.a. Raekwon the Chef, is one of the few who is both. His versatile flow, natural storytelling and evocative imagery has inspired legions of fans and a new generation of rappers. As one of the founding members of Wu-Tang Clan, Raekwon’s voice and cadence is synonymous with the inimitable sound that has made the group iconic since 1991. Now, for the first time, Raekwon tells his full story, from struggling through poverty to make ends meet to turning a hobby into a legacy. 

The handpicked stories in this collection introduce us to the most determined of gumshoe gals, from debutant detectives like Anna Katharine Green's Violet Strange to spinster sleuths like Mary Roberts Rinehart's Hilda Adams, from groundbreaking female cops like Baroness Orczy's Lady Molly to contemporary crime-fighting PIs like Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone, and include indelible tales from Agatha Christie, Carolyn Wells, Edgar Wallace, L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace, Sara Paretsky, Nevada Barr, Laura Lippman, and many more. 

It's easy to overlook the underlying strategic forces of war, to see it solely as a series of errors, accidents and emotions gone awry. It's also easy to forget that war shouldn't happen - and most of the time, it doesn't. Around the world, there are millions of hostile rivalries, yet only a tiny fraction erupt into violence. Too many accounts of conflict forget this. With a counterintuitive approach, Blattman reminds us that most rivals loathe one another in peace. That's because war is too costly to fight.

In The Rise, listeners will travel from the cracked concrete basketball courts of Philadelphia in the 1960s and '70s - where Kobe’s father, Joe, became a playground, college and professional stand out - to the majesty and isolation of Europe, where Kobe spent his formative years, and to the leafy suburbs of Lower Merion, where Kobe’s legend was born. 

Many highly successful people are backed long before they are qualified. We tend to view these people as lucky. But the decision to back them is neither an accident nor a mistake and rarely the result of good luck. Drawing from his own business experience, countless interviews with some of tech's biggest innovators and compelling case studies of classic success stories such as Howard Schultz and Elon Musk, Gupta breaks down the qualities of backable people.

Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan presents a stunning retrospective of the first 10 years of the author’s work. It is a compilation of more than 200,000 words of short fiction, including many of her most acclaimed stories as well as some of the author’s personal favorites; several previously uncollected, hard-to-find pieces; her sci-fi novella, The Dry Salvages; and a rare collaboration with Poppy Z. Brite. 

Like all great metropolises before it, when a city gets big enough, old enough, it must be born; but there are ancient enemies who cannot tolerate new life. Thus New York will live or die by the efforts of a reluctant midwife...and how well he can learn to sing the city's mighty song. 

Lewis Gordon, one of the leading scholars of Black existentialism, has spent decades nurturing intellectual reflection as a vital component of ongoing activism for racial justice around the world. In this boldly original book, he delves into history, art, politics and popular culture to show how the process of racialization - and its absence - affects not only how individuals and society perceive Black people but also how Black people perceive themselves.

Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Tupac’s birth and 25th anniversary of his death, in Changes, Sheldon Pearce offers one of the most thoughtful and comprehensive accounts yet of the artist’s life and legacy. Pearce, an editor and writer at The New Yorker, interviews dozens who knew Tupac throughout various phases of his life. While there are plenty of bold-faced names, the book focuses on the individuals who are lesser known and offer fresh stories and rare insight.

Years after its release, Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea remains one of the most beloved and best-selling albums in all of indie music, hailed as a classic so influential as to be almost synonymous with the ongoing vinyl revival. But despite its outsized impact, a question looms even larger: why did frontman Jeff Mangum, just as the record propelled him to the brink of music superstardom, choose instead to disappear entirely? The mystery has perplexed listeners for decades—until now.

From mansions to trap houses, office buildings to strip clubs, Atlanta is defined by its rap music. But this flashy and fast-paced world is rarely seen below surface level as a collection not of superheroes and villains, cartoons and caricatures, but of flawed and inspired individuals all trying to get a piece of what everyone else seems to have. In artistic, commercial, and human terms, Atlanta rap represents the most consequential musical ecosystem of this century. Rap Capital tells the dramatic stories of the people who make it tick and the city that made them that way.

In 1985, police bombed a West Philadelphia row house owned by the Afrocentric cult known as Move, killing 11 people and starting a fire that destroyed 60 other houses. At the heart of Philadelphia Fire is Cudjoe, a writer and exile who returns to his old neighborhood after spending a decade fleeing from his past and who becomes obsessed with the search for a lone survivor of the event: a young boy seen running from the flames.

Musicians know how to stay ahead of the beat. Forced to find new ways to adapt to accelerating change, musicians are masters of innovation. Demystifying their process for the first time, Two Beats Ahead reveals what we can learn from today's top musical minds. Drawing from interviews and case studies with masterminds like Quincy Jones, Jimmy Iovine, Dr Dre, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and Pharrell Williams, as well as leaders at Google X and Amazon, this book identifies the key lessons and skills musicians can teach us about innovation.

Young people have the power to affect sweeping change, and the key to mending the racial divide in America lies in giving them the tools to ask honest questions and take in the difficult answers. Approaching every awkward, taboo, and uncomfortable question with openness and patience, Emmanuel Acho connects his own experience with race and racism - from attending majority-white prep schools to his time in the NFL playing on majority-black football teams - to insightful lessons in black history and black culture.