Triksta

Starred review from October 17, 2005
A British rock journalist based in New York, Cohn artfully chronicles his recent infatuation with New Orleans's rap scene. His obsession with the city sparked when he first visited, on tour with the Who in 1972; over the years he regarded New Orleans "as the lover could never be free of." By the late '90s, stricken with hepatitis and flirting with death, the nearly elderly author hears "bounce," a type of New Orleans rap dictated by a formula of shout outs and street chants, and marketed successfully by the local Take Fo' Records. He immerses himself in this Southern gangsta hybrid, epitomized by Soulja Slim—a "real nigga" who hailed from the tough Magnolia projects, soured on drugs, guns and jail, and was shot dead by his mid-20s in 2003—and 19-year-old, gold-toothed Choppa. Nicknamed, thrillingly, Nik da Trik, or Triksta by Choppa, Cohn gains a mark of authenticity from the musicians and even works as a well-meaning talent scout for DreamWorks (the rappers call it DreamShit) before he is defeated by the city's deeply inbred sense of futility and "cycle of slaughter." This heart-heavy patchwork (pieces of which appeared in magazines) proves especially elegiac in Katrina's catastrophic wake. Agent, Amanda Urban.