
The Book of Jose
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Fat Joe
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By:
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Fat Joe
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Shaheem Reid
About this listen
Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum–selling artist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Fat Joe pulls back the curtain on his larger-than-life persona in this gritty, intimate memoir about growing up in the South Bronx and finding his voice through music.
“An adrenaline rush . . . buckle up and lean back.”—Spin
Fat Joe is a hip-hop legend, but this is not a tale of celebrity; it is the story of Joseph Cartagena, a kid who came of age in the South Bronx during its darkest years of drugs, violence, and abandonment, and how he navigated that traumatizing landscape until he found—through art, friendship, luck, and will—a rocky path to a different life.
Joe is born into a sprawling Puerto Rican and Cuban family in the projects of the South Bronx. From infancy his life is threatened by violence, and by the time he starts middle school, he is faced with the grim choice that defined a generation: to become predator or prey. Soon Joe and his crew dominate the streets, but he finds his true love among the park jams where the Bronx’s wild energy takes musical form. His identity splits in two: a hustler roaming record stores, looking for beats; and a budding rapper whose violent rep rings in the streets. As Joe’s day-to-day life becomes more fraught with betrayal, addiction, and death, until he himself is shot and almost killed, he gravitates toward the music that gives him both a voice to tell the stories of his young life and the tools he needs to create a new one. The challenges never stop—but neither does Joe.
This memoir, written in Joe’s own intensely compelling voice, moves with the momentum of pulp fiction, but underneath the tragicomedy and riveting tales of the streets and the industry is a thought-provoking story about a generation of survivors raised in warlike conditions—the life-and-death choices they had to make, the friends they lost and mourned, and the glittering lives they created from the ruins.
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Interview: Hip-Hop Legend Fat Joe Sets the Record Straight in The Book of Jose
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Story
To Jeezy’s legion of fans, his name is synonymous with hustle, grit, and the integrity to go out there and achieve your dreams. In his first book, Adversity for Sale: Ya Gotta Believe, Jeezy shares never heard stories of what it took for him to beat the odds and get out of the streets, his mindset he carefully honed to get an edge, and the lessons that changed his life and business.
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Couldn’t turn it off!!
- By Anonymous User on 09-11-23
By: Jeezy
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Cross the Tracks
- A Memoir
- By: Boosie Badazz
- Narrated by: Jaime Lincoln Smith
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of rap’s most evocative writers comes a stirring memoir and “masterpiece of a book” (Snoop Dogg) about how Boosie Badazz, one of the industry’s most controversial figures, was able to overcome insurmountable odds to make his music dreams a reality.
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Something is missing.
- By Mr. GeeChee City on 04-18-25
By: Boosie Badazz
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The Autobiography of Gucci Mane
- By: Gucci Mane, Neil Martinez-Belkin
- Narrated by: Guy Lockard
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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For the first time, Gucci Mane tells his story in his own words. It is the captivating life of an artist who forged an unlikely path to stardom and personal rebirth. Gucci Mane began writing his memoir in a maximum-security federal prison. Released in 2016, he emerged radically transformed. He was sober, smiling, focused, and positive - a far cry from the Gucci Mane of years past. Born in rural Bessemer, Alabama, Radric Delantic Davis became Gucci Mane in East Atlanta, where the rap scene is as vibrant as the dope game.
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Loved it
- By Dee on 12-09-17
By: Gucci Mane, and others
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Armed with Good Intentions
- By: Wallo267, Iyanla Vanzant
- Narrated by: Wallo267
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Named after his well-respected father who disappeared when he was two, Wallo grew up in North Philadelphia with his mom, brothers, and grandmother, feeling pressure to achieve the success and reputation his father had on the streets. Wallace “Wallo267” Peeples spent twenty years in and out of the prison system before restarting his life and catapulting himself to unforeseen levels of social impact, cultural influence, and success. Now he shares his story with the trademark honesty that’s made him an inspiration to those who need it most.
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Never quit
- By Amazon Customer on 09-21-24
By: Wallo267, and others
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Tupac Shakur
- The Authorized Biography
- By: Staci Robinson
- Narrated by: Jamal Joseph, Staci Robinson
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Tupac Shakur is one of the greatest and most controversial artists of all time. More than a quarter of a century after his tragic death in 1996 at the age of just twenty-five, he continues to be one of the most misunderstood, complicated, and prolific figures in modern history. Drawing on exclusive access to Tupac’s private notebooks, letters, and uncensored conversations with those who loved and knew him best, this estate-authorized biography paints the fullest and most intimate picture to date of the young man who became a legend for generations to come.
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The Biography we’ve been waiting for
- By carl zayas on 02-24-24
By: Staci Robinson
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Split Decision
- Life Stories
- By: Ice-T, Spike, Douglas Century
- Narrated by: Ice-T, Spike, Douglas Century
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Ice-T rose to fame in the late 1980s, earning acclaim for his music before going on to enthrall television audiences as Odafin “Fin” Tutuola in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. But it could have gone much differently. In this “poignant and powerful” (Library Journal, starred review) memoir, Ice-T and Spike, his former crime partner—collaborating with New York Times bestselling author Douglas Century—relate the shocking stories of their shared pasts, and how just a handful of decisions led to their incredibly different lives.
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An awesome book
- By Cornelius DeMarcus on 11-30-22
By: Ice-T, and others
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Da Baddest
- By: Trina, Sesali Bowen - contributor
- Narrated by: Trina
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in the Liberty City area of Miami, Florida, Katrina “Trina” Taylor spent her childhood feeling relatively sheltered by her mother and stepfather. Trina and her mother had an unbreakable bond, and Liberty City felt like a playground made just for her. And even at a young age, Trina knew what she wanted: to be a powerful, successful, and magnetic woman, a woman who was entirely self-reliant and independent. In Da Baddest, Trina’s voice is, as always, powerful, insightful, witty, and provocative, while also showcasing her vulnerability and deep love for her family, home, and music
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Riveting
- By Cidney Raquel on 05-04-25
By: Trina, and others
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Lucky Me
- A Memoir of Changing the Odds
- By: Rich Paul, Jesse Washington - contributor, LeBron James - foreword
- Narrated by: Rich Paul, Dennis Logan
- Length: 4 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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There’s a story about Rich Paul that everyone knows: A twenty-one-year-old kid from Cleveland who sells sports jerseys out of his car meets a high school basketball phenom named LeBron James at an airport—the two become friends and forge a decades-long partnership that reinvents the business of sports. That random meeting might seem like the lucky break that changed Paul’s life. But a moment of good fortune means nothing without the struggle that gets you there. And the truth is, Paul had always been lucky.
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Bad choices made this man
- By Lynn Gibson on 10-18-23
By: Rich Paul, and others
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Black Privilege
- Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It
- By: Charlamagne Tha God
- Narrated by: Charlamagne Tha God
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Charlamagne Tha God - the self-proclaimed "Prince of Pissing People Off", co-host of Power 105.1's The Breakfast Club, and "hip-hop's Howard Stern" - shares his unlikely success story as well as how embracing one's truths is a fundamental key to success and happiness.
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Amazing, Inspirational, Needlessly Crude at Times
- By Smokey on 08-24-17
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Rememberings
- By: Sinéad O'Connor
- Narrated by: Sinéad O'Connor
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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From the acclaimed, controversial singer-songwriter Sinéad O’Connor comes a revelatory memoir of her fraught childhood, musical triumphs, fearless activism, and of the enduring power of song.
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Brilliant
- By Lora on 06-05-21
By: Sinéad O'Connor
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Unsuccessful Thug
- One Comedian's Journey from Naptown to Tinseltown
- By: Mike Epps
- Narrated by: J.D. Jackson
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Mike Epps is one of America’s favorite and funniest people, but the path to fame was paved with opportunities to mess it up. And mess it up he did. Growing up in “Naptown” - what people who live there really call rough-around-the-edges Indianapolis - Epps was drawn to a life of crime, but as he quickly discovered, stealing and dealing didn’t really fit his sweet sensibilities. Not to mention he wasn’t very good at it - take, for example, the day he had to call the cops on himself when a dog wouldn’t let him leave a house he was burgling.
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The performer is not good
- By Sgamble on 04-11-18
By: Mike Epps
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The Harlem Plug
- The Richard "Fritz" Simmons Story
- By: Harlem Holiday
- Narrated by: Jeremy Michael Durm
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In Harlem’s tumultuous history, there are many tragedies. For those growing up in this part of New York City, a young man known simply as Fritz from West 112th Street became an urban legend in Harlem. In the 1970s, Richard “Fritz” Simmons is introduced to the drug trade by an associate of the Lucchese crime family, one of the five families of La Cosa Nostra (the Mafia). After negotiating a deal with the Medellín Cartel, Fritz becomes New York’s Cocaine Consignment King. Harlem Holiday brings her inside scoop after almost three decades of silence.
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A Legend
- By Kristen L on 05-02-23
By: Harlem Holiday
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The Beautiful Ones
- By: Prince
- Narrated by: Esperanza Spalding, Adepero Oduye, Dan Piepenbring
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Prince was a musical genius, one of the most beloved, accomplished, and acclaimed musicians of our time. The Beautiful Ones is the story of how Prince became Prince - a first-person account of a kid absorbing the world around him and then creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and fame that would come to define him. This work is not just a tribute to an icon, but an original and energizing literary work in its own right, full of Prince’s ideas and vision, his voice and image - his undying gift to the world.
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Reminiscing
- By Bodyguard Careers on 10-29-19
By: Prince
What listeners say about The Book of Jose
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- Anonymous User
- 05-26-23
INCREDIBLE AND INSPIRATIONAL STORY
Was a fabulous story that was exciting sad scary and impressive. I’ve always liked Fatjo, but never knew his story so in depth, he is a real success story and hope that he continues on that path. I will probably listen to this book again.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Taris
- 11-23-22
Incredible Story
What an incredible story. Joe went through a lot. We only see the finished product. Joe’s raw storytelling is filled with so much emotion and power, I finished the audiobook in one day. I couldn’t turn it off.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-23-22
Amazing Story
Loved this book. It is truly and American tale of an American kid living the American dream.
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- Sarria
- 11-20-22
Lugo’s review
I really appreciated this book and I loved it was narrated by Fat joe himself. It was a nice walk down memory lane in regards to the music industry throughout the past 30 years.
I recommend this book to anyone who feels like they come from the streets, anyone who love music, or anyone who just loves a good overall biography
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- Steven Proctor
- 11-23-22
Book of Jose
Super dope book !! I loved every word !! Salutes Joe Crack !! Love the lessons!! Love the story telling !! Just an awesome book!!
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- Rik Sanchez
- 11-18-22
Can't wait for the Movie!
Great story and a great performance. When you think you know the whole story you are reminded that Fat Joe has been an integral part of hip Hop.
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- Anthony
- 11-22-22
Fat Joe!!! He did his thing!!!
I remember fat joe from "flow joe" and this book provided tons of information about things I never knew about him. Good performance and excellent insights on things about his life. As a classic hip hop fan I highly recommend this book.
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- Richard
- 11-25-22
Provocative and Inspiring
The reflection, authenticity and transparency are an enlightening coming of age in a very transformative way. To arrive at “life begins at 50” is appreciated by all of us that grew with Fat Joe and his generation of rap artists.
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- Eliezer Bermudez
- 12-12-22
Book of Jose Papitoooo
Very well put together memoir from the legend himself Joe Crack the Don. Would have like to hear a little more of why the break up terror squad happened and why his fallout with certain closest to Pun. However great read, the animated voice and content from Joe himself keep listeners captivated! You scored a big win with this one for sure Papito!!! Felicidades
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- Salsa6
- 12-13-22
Amazing
I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Joey crack he is an amazing storyteller, and it’s even better coming straight from him about his adventurous and gangsta lifestyle truly and inspiring story. I was excited to hear every chapter and sad when it was over his life would be an amazing movie.
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