Adapted from a cult novel, the story charts the spectacular rise and brutal fall of a black drug dealer (DMX) as it is relayed to a young white journalist (David Arquette) posthumously through the dead hustler's diaries. The book's author, Donald Goines, is one of the most successful black authors of all time, despite his premature death in an ununsolved homicide. He lived the life of the streets, then wrote about it, in a series of best-selling novels remarkable for their hard-hitting authenticity and their understanding of human nature as it reveals itself in extreme situations.