Hustle and Grow

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Even among its purveyors, street lit's ethos has taken some knocks. "There are so many people flooding the market, but they're not taking responsibility for what they're writing," says K'wan. "It's just a bunch of guns. The life we live is graphic and real, but authors need to have some type of moral lesson in their books."

Like every other kind of media, publishing is faddish. The rapper 50 Cent recently started an imprint. Vibe magazine, in conjunction with Kensington Publishing, followed suit. The expansion has left some of its authors ambivalent. "In the beginning it was about a need to express ourselves on a greater plane," says K'wan. "But now it's such a money thing. It affects how the genre is perceived by the public, and it affects authors coming in. They look at this like it's Hollywood. They don't understand that to endure this game, you have to love this game." But as he well knows, to play it, you've got to make the numbers.