Love Don't Live Here No More; Book One of Doggy Tales

by Snoop Dogg; David E. Talbert

• ISBN13: 9780743273633
• ISBN10: 074327363X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-10-24
• Publisher: Atria

Summary

This is the dramatic story of a young man with a passion for rapping and making music, hip-hop style, but who survives the mean streets of Southern California by dealing drugs. His fatyher is out of the picture, but he has a loving mum who raised him, a posse of friends, and a girlfriend who encourages him to pursue his passion and leave the life of street hustling behind. With her encouragement, he does prsue his dream and ultimately achieves it. He earns a record deal and rises to stardom, but achieving his goal does not mean that trouble and struggle are behind him. Indeed, he soon discovers that the omnous temptations of the street are replaced by the temptations of stardom. Snoop Dogg has and continues to live the life he writes about, promising a compelling novel infused with the authenticity and drama that is the hallmark of the best of contemporary urban fiction in a language and voice taht is uniquely Snoop Dogg - smart, funny, in-your-face, and unforgettable.

Excerpts

Chapter One It was the eighties. The summer of 1989, to be exact. Hip-hop was conscious. Rebellious. Stronger than the blackest cup of your mama's black coffee. Public Enemy was barreling through the airwaves."Fight the power. We got to fight the powers that be."But no matter how much conscious rap we were listening to, niggas were still wildin' out, especially me and my brother Bing. Throwing bricks through car windows, crank-ringing doorbells, stealing candy from the corner store, and hanging out in the alley with baby hoodrats, lifting up their shirts and looking at their baby breasts, nipples shaped like Mike & Ikes. It's not like they were all that big, but to us they were winning. We were young and having fun. We were on one, living life the only way we knew. In the streets as much as we could be for as long as we could, or at least until somebody's grandmama came running out in her housecoat and pink slippers, chasing us away. "You see these damn streetlights! Don't make me come off this porch." We were hoping to God that just one time she would come off the porch, but she never had to. In the 'hood, grandmamas were like the ghetto E. F. Huttons. When they spoke, cats listened. The Pro-Wings were hitting the asphalt. Life couldn't get any better. And as bad as the world may have seemed to folks on the outside, from the inside, it was perfect. Even in the worst times, niggas still got their party on. Like the time Mrs. Johnson lost her job and got evicted, and Mrs. Jenkins threw her a rent party charging ten dollars a plate for some fried chicken, collard greens, and macaroni and cheese that didn't cost no more than two dollars to make. Or the time Mrs. Parker's phone got cut off and Mrs. Patterson let her get another one in her five-year-old son's name. Shit didn't faze us, especially Bing and me. Not that we had a whole lot, but the little we had, Mama always made it seem like more. Like on birthdays. By the time Bing's rolled around, whatever I'd gotten on mine was rewrapped in a Broadway box with a stick-on bow and given to him. And those Christmases when money was tight, and we only got a Hot Wheel, some socks, and a pack of Fruit of the Loom. But by the time all the kids in the neighborhood played with each other's toys, it didn't matter, 'cause what one got, we all got. That was on the east side of Long Beach. One day Mama came home with the bright idea to move us to North Long Beach, supposedly for something better. The way I saw it, though, North Long Beach rats were just as nasty as east side rats -- they just breathed ocean air. So off we went, looking like Arnold and Willis, cramming all our stuff into her dented-up, dingy blue Nova with a U-Haul attached to the back. The neighborhood kids were singing the theme fromThe Jeffersonsas the car backfired out of one 'hood and into another. "Here we are," Mama said, smiling and looking proud, like we had just pulled into Beverly Hills. Judging from the chipped stucco and barred windows; the liquor store next to the pawnshop next to the Nix Check Cashing Store next to First Baptist across the street from Third Baptist down the block from Second Baptist; Church's Chicken; and the older cats with the brown paper bags stumbling in the streets -- instead of moving on up, we'd just moved over. We unloaded the one good couch covered in plastic that she would never let us sit on. It didn't matter who you were, you wasn't sitting on that couch. She didn't even sit on it. Next, we unloaded her favorite chair, the one place where she did sit. The tweed chair. The one that when you got up, it damn near scraped the skin off the back of your thighs and left an imprint on your ass. So old that the zipper was broken and yellow foam came out every time you sat down. She couldn't have been comfortable, but that's where she sat. And if you wanted to sit, that's where you