In this genre-defying memoir filled with illustrations throughout, legendary emcee Tariq Trotter, Grammy Award-winning co-founder of The Roots, traces his journey of creativity, discovery, and inspiration.
Long before Black Thought would become known as one of the greatest rappers of all time, way before the Grammys, the viral freestyles, and the Tonight Show fame, Tariq Trotter was a young kid with a rich imagination and a curiosity about the world—a world shaped by Philadelphia's skyline and grounded by the South Philly sidewalks and train tracks where he would play. Tariq refers to himself as "the son of survival" for making it out of the violence that plagued his childhood; his father was murdered when he was just one year old, and fifteen years later, he would lose his mother to another brutal homicide. Tariq knew the end of their lives was not the end of their legacy, and he carried their stories with him as he tried to build the man he would become.
In The Upcycled Self, Tariq offers pieces of himself, forged from the Philly of the 70s and 80s, in letters, lyrics, images, and stories. We journey via episodic spotlights—through the early days of hip-hop, when he would pick words from the dictionary to incorporate into his rhymes. We feel the promise of a new art form that can tell Black life as it really is while life itself becomes more harrowing, with the rise of organized crime and crack. As rap grows in popularity and influence, Tariq hones his creative voice, mastering his unique skills in gritty storytelling and mercurial wordflow.
Written with his signature thoughtfulness and singular wordplay, Tariq Trotter's The Upcycled Self brings readers on a journey of struggle, healing, and self-realization. It is an intentional, carefully designed testament to creativity and the bygone eras that shape us.
