Book Review: My Name Is Curtis Snow And I’m A G

Urban slang changes from state to state, even city to city.  But from the park to the penitentiary in any city you can name within the 50 states, the letter “G” stands for gangster.  And that’s what Curtis Snow (that’s right, that’s the name on his birth certificate) claims to be.  If you get three pages into this collection of his inner most thoughts, you’ll most likely agree.  

Curtis Snow first landed in the national consciousness as the central figure in the 2011 documentary, “Snow On The Bluff.”  It begins with Mr. Snow robbing some unsuspecting college students who have drifted into his neighborhood in search of drugs.  (See www.snowonthebluff.com) 

Snow was born into the game.  He was raised in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in America, an Atlanta hood called, the “Bluff.”  As a child, his mother took him to the trap house on late night runs from drugs.  His father sired 11 children by several different women.  There was violence in his household.  He recalls, “The first time I slapped a b----, ‘I was like did I get that from Daddy?”  The book is chocked full of section headings like, “I Use To Serve Dope To My Own Mama” and “I Taught All Three Of My Brothers About The Streets.”  

Where rappers might flex and brag about their invincibility and street cred, Curtis Snow keeps it real.  He speaks about the danger that might attract itself to your innocent, nonaffiliated family members if you do in the streets.  He speaks frankly about the very real possibility of incarceration for people who sell drugs.  What he offers is an unvarnished look into inner city America in the post-industrial 21st century.  This book should be required reading for preachers and anyone else seeking to create relevant ministry in the troubles times in which we live.  

The book has no narrator.  It’s as though some unseen person threw Curtis Snow a notebook full of questions and then just let him talk.  Reading the book feels as though he’s sitting across the coffee table from you.  

Snow says, “Once family turn they back on you, it’s gotta be somebody that accepts you.  That’s where that gang s--- comes in at.  They prey on that weakness and that fear...The streets gon’ tell you to do something wrong.  The streets ain’t got s--- to tell you that’s gon’ make your life better.  But it’s a whole generation of n----s listening to the street before they own mama.”  

My Name Is Curtis Snow And I’m A G; it’s not pretty but its real.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnW7d2sYnvM