Musician Memoirs

The music star memoir is a special corner of literature where people who probably hated school get to have their revenge. They get to look back at the English teacher who gave them bad grades--and say--"Look at me now, lots of people want to read what I'm writing!" I can personally attest to the fact that these books are "written" by the stars because I've spent years working on memoirs by the hip-hop legends KRS-One, Nas and Rakim. In most cases, the star isn't actually typing anything--but they are dictating their story while the writer tries to be faithful to their voice so it absolutely is their book [if not their work]. In my experience, these memoirs are hard to write partly because musicians have conquered a field where success is rare, giving them a sense that it was all predestined.

The New York Times Book Review, December 8, 2019