* This product is not available for expedited shipping.

Tory Tyson may only be in high school, but he knows what he wants out of life--a successful music career. And he's not going to learn about all that at school. So when school lets out next month he's not going back. He's finally ready to stop spinning old records at parties and start laying down his own beats--and the Unsigned Hype music contest is the perfect place to launch his career. But will he be able to handle the fame and fortune he seeks?

Tory Tyson may only be in high school, but he knows what he wants out of life--a successful music career. And he's not going to learn about all that at school. So when school lets out next month he's not going back. He's finally ready to stop spinning old records at parties and start laying down his own beats--and the Unsigned Hype music contest is the perfect place to launch his career. But will he be able to handle the fame and fortune he seeks?

Grounded in the world of today's urban youth, Unsigned Hype will draw readers in with its fresh voice and true-to-life rendering of the hip-hop world. Booker T. Mattison delivers a story with attitude in the vernacular of the urban teen.

Booker T. Mattison is an author and filmmaker who wrote the screenplay for and directed the film adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston's The Gilded Six Bits, which aired on Showtime. His films have been screened at the Smithsonian Institute, the Library of Congress, the Directors Guild of America, and Harvard University. He has written and directed music videos that have aired on BET, MTV Europe, and the Gospel Music Channel.

Mattison's first novel, Unsigned Hype, was published by Baker Publishing Group in June 2009 and is already in its second printing. He is now working on an adult novel.

Mattison has taught literary criticism at the College of New Rochelle and film production at Brooklyn College. He received his master of fine arts in film from New York University and his bachelor of science in mass communication from Norfolk State University.

He lives in New York with his wife and four children.

Fifteen-year-old Tory Tyson knows that finishing high school isn't going to help him launch his hip-hop career as “Terror Tory” or vault him into fame and fortune. He doesn't understand why his mom is pushing him to finish school and to get him to understand the Christian faith she discovered five years ago. All he wants is to get a record deal as a rap music producer—so he pins his hopes on the “Unsigned Hype” demo contest at a local radio station. What he hasn't bargained for is all the attention he starts receiving after his beats are played, when only his family continues treating him the same, and that the one girl he truly wants isn't impressed by his newfound celebrity. This debut novel has an authentic voice, taking readers into the world of New York City hip-hop through the wide eyes of a kid who's still refreshingly innocent. Tory's Christian conversion is telegraphed from the very beginning, but readers will come to love the characters who mentor him along the way, despite the novel's didactic moments. Mattison's is a fresh voice in Christian YA fiction. Ages 12–up. (June) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

http://www.christianbook.com/unsigned-hype-booker-mattison/9780800733803/pd/733803

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product_review

__USERID__

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/ask_and_answer

Availability: Available to ship on or about 06/22/13. You may order this item now and we will ship it to you when it arrives. If you are charging this purchase to a credit card, you will not be charged for this item and its portion of your shipping charges until it is shipped.

Email me when this product is available.

• Books >> Fiction >> African American
• Books >> Fiction >> Contemporary >> General Contemporary
• Fiction >> Contemporary >> General Contemporary
• Start A New Christianbook.com Search

I'm the author/artist and I want to review Unsigned Hype.