When considering self-help books by celebrities, I look first at what expertise the author has that qualifies him or her to be dispensing advice. So what to do with HUSTLE HARDER, HUSTLE SMARTER (Amistad, 304 pp., $27.99), by Curtis Jackson, the rapper/producer/actor/entrepreneur known as 50 Cent? I don’t need advice on selling drugs (Fiddy at age 12), getting shot (nine times) or making hit records (over 30 million albums sold). But it happens the man has made several fortunes (and lost a couple too), which makes “Hustle Harder” an inspirational, if at times alarming, read. Like Snoop Dogg, Jackson’s got his mind on his money, and his money on his mind.
“Hustle Harder” is a business guide for the terminally cool, meaning few of us could get away with this stuff. Can you be the one sober person at every party, and elicit key information from everyone once they’re drunk? Fiddy can. Would your takeaway on the idea of being betrayed sound like this: “I’d rather be robbed at gunpoint than be betrayed … there’s an undeniable rush when someone pulls out their piece”? In the town I grew up in, Scarsdale, we’d be more likely to threaten someone who wronged us with a lawsuit. And unlike Jackson I wouldn’t feel I was “much stronger over all for having survived the experience.” A complicated discussion about stakes in a business deal where Jackson and his crew “expressed our concerns” has a threatening subtext. So this advice is not tailor-made for all business situations, though it could come in handy next time I have to deal with my co-op board.
Much of the appeal of Al Roker’s breezy YOU LOOK SO MUCH BETTER IN PERSON: True Stories of Absurdity and Success (Hachette Go, 224 pp., $28) is you get to spend time with Al Roker — and who doesn’t want that? This book is not for the alpha guy. The “Today” show’s weatherman is like the anti-50 Cent, and he is here to gently remind you that you can be a little bit nerdy and antisocial (he has suggested in interviews that he may, like his son, be on the autism spectrum) and still be a roaring success. His career advice, called “ALtruisms” (get it?), is not exactly earth-shatteringly original — there are chapters advising you not to boast, whine or name-drop (what he calls “goober-smooching”), and to work a little harder than the next guy. But they are illustrated with great charm, and show that you don’t have to be the company chest-beater to be the winner.
Not surprisingly, dealing with injustice and racism is a recurring theme: Black newsmen were still pretty rare when Roker was coming up, and there were many moments that could spark outrage. When he was still reporting the weather in Cleveland, the evening news anchor Doug Adair was swatted on the head by an unbalanced African-American homeless man outside the studio. During the broadcast the next day, Adair turned to Roker and said, “Al, I don’t know if you heard, but last night after the 11:00 news one of your people attacked me.” Before anyone could draw a shocked breath, Roker calmly turned to him and asked, “Doug, why would a weatherman attack you?” And that, my friends, is how you become one of the most beloved fixtures on network news.
Loni Love, the comedian, actor and co-host of the TV chat show “The Real,” has a gift: She can preach without being preachy. In I TRIED TO CHANGE SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO: True Life Lessons (Hachette Go, 241 pp., $28), Love tells her story about growing up in Detroit’s Brewster-Douglass projects at the height of the crack epidemic. Her formative years were every bit as harrowing as 50 Cent’s, with hunger a constant theme and ketchup sandwiches a staple. When Love was tapped to be a dealer’s girlfriend — an honor among her friends — she demurred. The French-horn-playing, math-loving teenager had other ideas. She made her money delivering groceries, then got a job on the G.M. line glue-gunning car carpet (all the while secretly living in her car — her mother had thrown her out to make room for her new boyfriend). With help from an exec who saw her reading “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” — who had himself made it out of the projects — she turned in her glue gun and went to college. In a few years she was working as an engineer at Xerox by day, and trying out her comedy chops on the Chitlin Circuit (the Black L.A. comedy clubs) at night. At various points in her life she tried to make herself what she was not: skinny, corporate, a “Black Stepford wife.” Fortunately, none of it worked.
Much of Love’s early life was, objectively, awful, but she mines it for comedy and life lessons, not pity. When one Christmas her mother couldn’t afford presents for the kids, she watched as her brother’s father (she didn’t know her own) brought him a bounty but nothing for her. The upshot was, “I learned two important life lessons that day: Number one: Feeling let down by someone’s bad behavior is a healthy sign that you know your worth. And number two: If Santa shows up with a Jheri curl, don’t let him in.”
With her maniacal work ethic, incredible nerve, practical wisdom and huge heart, it’s no surprise that Love found love. She’s a woman whose romantic advice we should all listen to. On vacation with a new boyfriend, she lost her wig while swimming. He’d never seen her without it. Not only did he tell her she looked beautiful in her cornrows, he dived into the water to retrieve it. “Ladies, take my advice, if you find yourself a man willing to brave an undertow to bring you back the hair you paid good money for, he’s a keeper.” They’re still together.
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July 28, 2020 at 04:00PM
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These Celebrities Can Change Your Life - The New York Times
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