Scars captures the political ambitions of Russell Simmons, the Black Spades gang foundation of Afrika Bambaataa and the Universal Zulu Nation, the spiritual sensibility of KRS-One and the Temple of Hip-Hop, and a keynoted debate on the materialistic, violent direction of hiphop culture. Interpreting the mood and inner-city atmosphere that caused the counterculture of hip-hop, Bronx native Miles Marshall Lewis details the circumstances of his father's heroin addiction, his mother's Southern spirituality, his grandfather's career as a Harlem numbers runner, and his own journey from a tenement-building upbringing to worldwide travels--with hiphop trailing his steps.

An incisive look at contemporary urban American life--including a foreword by acclaimed poet Saul Williams--Scars exposes the motivations and aspirations of a culture whose spiritual center was the Bronx.