Black Music Month is the perfect time to honor Black artists and ensure their stories are never forgotten—whether we’re jamming to their tracks or revisiting classic music videos. But beyond the music, many of these icons have told their own stories. While artist-controlled narratives can occasionally feel sanitized, a great memoir is often far more revealing than any interview or song. The deep reflection required to write a book leaves fans with an official record to cherish.
As Black Music Month wraps up for 2026, keep the vibes going until next June with these essential artist memoirs.
Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, The Upcycled Self: A Memoir on the Art of Becoming Who We Are
Black Thought has a reputation as one of the most brilliant rappers of all time, but despite all of those classic verses as the lead voice of The Roots, he doesn’t rap about his personal life very often. In his memoir The Upcycled Self, the Philadelphia lyricist finally opens up — about accidentally burning down his house as a child, the impact of violence and the crack epidemic on his loved ones, the formation of his band, and more. He frames his story as “upcycling” — the process of transforming waste or unwanted items into something usable and of higher quality.
Brandy, Phases (co-written by Gerrick Kennedy)
Despite living in the public eye since she was a teenager, there’s plenty about the life of Brandy Norwood that even her diehard fans wouldn’t know until reading her 2026 autobiography Phases. The renowned “Vocal Bible” candidly shares stories of fighting childhood bullies with extension cords, suffering a nervous breakdown while battling an addiction to diet pills and struggling to maintain life touring and starring on her sitcom Moesha, and fainting after being introduced to Michael Jackson at a recording studio. She also speaks about her relationships with Whitney Houston, former romantic partner and Boyz II Men singer Wanya Morris, and “The Boy is Mine” collaborator Monica.
Mariah Carey, The Meaning of Mariah Carey (with Michaela Angela Davis)
Mariah Carey has earned a career as one of the most beloved singers of all time with her renowned five-register vocals and her clever, resonant lyrics — and her way with words is on full display in her 2020 memoir. Whether she’s talking about her hair (which literally has its own chapter in the book), a near-drowning experience from her childhood, her relationships with Derek Jeter and former music exec Tommy Mottola, or her approach to writing music, this is a must-read for die-hard fans.
Eve, Who’s That Girl (co-written by Kathy Iandoli)
When Eve released her memoir in 2024, it’d been more than a decade since her last album Lip Lock — but fans never stopped loving the self-proclaimed “pitbull in a skirt.” So Who’s That Girl was a welcome addition to the rapper/actress’ legacy as one of the best to ever touch a mic, woman or otherwise. Her book finds her narrating her upbringing in Philly, about her drinking problem that led to a DUI, her career as an entertainer, and even her struggles to conceive children with husband Maxmillion Cooper before welcoming her first biological child via IVF in 2022.
Gucci Mane, The Autobiography of Gucci Mane (co-written by Neil Martinez-Belkin)
The Autobiography of Gucci Mane is largely seen as one of the best rap memoirs of the last ten years. He began writing the book while serving a prison sentence for a gun charge, and completed it after he was released. The southern rap legend candidly talks about learning from his scamming father as a kid, recounts an embarrassing introduction by producer Scott Storch to his friends (“This is the guy I was telling you about! … The one with the murder charge!”), and the harrowing journey of addiction, violence, and rap superstardom before his post-carceral glow-up. After this, Gucci Mane released two other books: a self-help title called The Gucci Mane Guide To Greatness with Soren Baker, and Episodes with Kathy Iandoli, a darker memoir that dives into his mental health and speaks to medical professionals about his experiences.
Miles Davis, Miles: The Autobiography (co-written by Quincy Troupe)
It’s impossible to tell the story of Black music without Miles Davis — and when he’s the narrator, he doesn’t hold anything back. The visionary jazz musician uses his autobiography to tell the good, the bad, and the ugly: the creative decisions that led to extraordinary career, how he personally considered the widely-considered classic album Kind of Blue as “a failed experiment,” his addiction to sex and drugs, his physical abuse of women, and more. It was so candid, in fact, that it won an American Book Award in 1990, and the audiobook narrated by Lavar Burton was nominated for the Grammy for Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album.
Jay-Z, Decoded
Jay-Z’s original plans of a memoir titled The Black Book with journalist dream hampton were scrapped, when he decided after working on it for two years that he was revealing too much of his personal life. But with Decoded, Hov took a different approach: he splits autobiography with line-by-line breakdowns of assorted verses. The final product tells his life story, exhibits his brilliantly witty and poignant lyricism, and shares his perspective on the sociopolitical issues that are reflected in both of those things.
Prodigy, My Infamous Life (co-written by Laura Checkoway)
Whether it’s as half of the duo Mobb Deep or his work as a solo artist, Prodigy was one of rap’s most unflinching poets, sharing grim, macabre stories from his stomping grounds of Queens, New York City. My Infamous Life finds him sharing how he was allured to street life despite having a privileged upbringing, his battles with substance abuse and sickle cell anemia (the inherited blood disease that eventually took his life in 2017), and his firsthand accounts of the wild run-ins with other 90s rap legends like Jay-Z, Nas, Snoop Dogg, and others. Painful, honest, and vivid, just like the bars that his fans have grown to love.
Alicia Keys, More Myself: A Journey (co-written by Michelle Burford)
Alicia Keys has referred to More Myself as a “journey” more than a memoir. “I feel like a memoir sounded like I was gonna die tomorrow,” she joked with Jimmy Kimmel. But to be fair, she does take an approach different from most artist memoirs. The Audible version of More Myself features Keys both reading and singing and playing snippets of her music, along with icons like Jay-Z, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama offering introductions before chapters. She dives into her upbringing in Hell’s Kitchen, her estranged relationship with her father, her creative process of crafting albums, and her struggles with navigating the pressures of life in the spotlight.
DMX, E.A.R.L.: The Autobiography of DMX (as told to Smokey Fontaine)
When it comes to rappers as intense as DMX, you can probably count them on one hand. The Yonkers MC growled and shouted his rhymes over knocking production at one moment before delivering somber, pensive prayers the next. His autobiography gives a firsthand account of the pain behind his music: a tumultuous childhood marred by poverty and abuse, drug addiction, crime, and incarceration. Readers walk away from the book with a better understanding of how DMX became the person he was before his death in 2021.
Brad “Scarface” Jordan, Diary of a Madman (with Benjamin Meadows-Ingram)
Houston rapper Scarface earned his rep as an all-time great by being willing to spark controversy, dwell in the darkest corners of his mind, and emphasize the perils of hustling instead of glorifying the fast money. In his book Diary of a Madman, he does everything that made his music so great. He speaks about failed suicide attempts, harrowing tales from his time as a drug dealer, and gives detailed accounts of his music career — from early infatuation with rock & roll, to founding the Geto Boys, to launching his own successful solo career.
Harry Belafonte, My Song
Including My Song on a list of Black music memoirs is appropriate, but Harry Belafonte was much more than a musician. His music career includes three Grammy awards and the distinction of his album Calypso being the first to sell a million copies by a single artist; his acting career includes more than two dozen feature film and TV shows, a Tony Award, and an Emmy; and he’s been just as dedicated to his work in social justice, essentially setting the gold standard for celebrity involvement with humanitarianism and activism. His memoir is just as much of an account of his own life — growing up poor in New York City, becoming a club singer to pay for acting classes —as it is a document of the civil rights movement. At one point, he helped mediate communication between Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy. My Song provides a written account of an example that all of us should look up to.
Tina Turner, My Love Story
For many, Tina Turner’s life may be some combination of selling millions of records while breaking barriers in rock music and surviving abuse at the hands of her husband Ike Turner, powerfully portrayed by Oscar-nominated Angela Bassett in the film What’s Love Got To Do With It. But My Love Story — her second memoir released in 2018, more than 30 years after her previous book I, Tina — shows that there’s a lot more to her story. She speaks about picking cotton with her sharecropper parents in Nutbush, Tenn., her son’s suicide, her powerful music career, and receiving a kidney transplant from her second husband.
