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Hiding in Hip Hop: On the Down Low in the Entertainment Industry--from Music to Hollywood | 
 enlarge | Author: Terrance Dean
Publisher: Atria
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
Buy New: $14.13
You Save: $8.87 (39%)
New (29) Used (7) from $14.13
Avg. Customer Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 11794
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Atria Books Hardcover Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 1416553398
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.765092
EAN: 9781416553397
ASIN: 1416553398
Publication Date: May 13, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
Everyone wants to know the truth about their favorite celebrities' heart's desire. Within the masculine culture of Hip Hop and Hollywood, there is a well-known gay subculture that industry insiders are keenly aware of but choose to hide. Terrance Dean worked his way up for more than ten years in the entertainment industry from intern to executive, and has lived the life of glitz and bling along with Hollywood and Hip Hop's most glamorous. With a family full of secrets and working in an industry founded on maleness -- where one's job, friendships, and reputation all depend on remaining on the down low and in hiding -- Dean writes a revealing account of the journey of coming out from hiding.Full of startling anecdotes and incredible true stories, Hiding in Hip Hop is not a traditional tell-all. A personal and poignant memoir, it is also one of the most provocative and honest looks at stardom and sexuality.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 24 more reviews...
 A White Man's Opinion July 22, 2008
I was in Houston visiting a friend when he pulled this book out. I was bored and started flipping through it... and then started to read it. I don't pretend to know ANYTHING about this lifestyle but I do know the book was very easy to read and very simply written - conversational style. I had no knowledge (still don't) of any of the references to hip hop or even the Hollywood references above the glaring obvious. I enjoyed reading this book and it's familiar written prose. Knowing what I know after reading it, I would buy the book. Thank you Terrance. I enjoyed it!
 A never ending maze July 18, 2008
This book was just basically his life story. I did not like the book because he did not reveal any names. The clues he gives does not even give you a chance to narrow the list down. I'm glad that I checked this one out at my local library. Superhead's first book was off the chain. The second one was boring. But I'm glad that I didn't BUY the book. He doesn't even give a good description of the person's apperance. The only thing that I can say is that I believe he is gay because he was molested by a relative. His life may be quite different if he had some source of foundation growing up.
It's ok.....I guess (not) June 27, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I have this book and I haven't finished it yet. It's pretty much about one mans struggle with what is so obvious (that he is so gay). It's pretty frustrating because he goes back and fourth so much. Then there is a point where he is only with men and describing his sex adventures. Then there is the whole spirituality struggle that he is dealing with. This book so far has really upset me with how much denial this person is in and everyone who he describes in his book. They surely don't care about the what they are doing to the black community by being on the "down low". I mean seriously if your mother and little brother had HIV/AIDS I don't think that you would be out here living this secret life, just because you want to be selfish. Like I said though I haven't finished this book and from what I hear I am only in the beginning of this book (page 123) this is still day one but I doubt I will finish it just as I tried to read that other DL book.
 Worth Waiting For June 23, 2008
I first read about this book last year and I decided right then and there that I HAD to get a copy when it came out.I have had some of my suspicions of Hip Hop artists confirmed by this book-and it is very thought provoking,too.
 Hiding In Plain Sight June 22, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Terrance Dean dances gingerly through glass as he journeys from self-loathing to self-loving in a memoir that is at once brutally forthcoming and surprisingly discreet.
He assigns aliases to the major and minor down low players in the entertainment industry, a world, as any insider knows, is about as gay as pink ink. And it's a good thing he does. Some are so thinly disguised that only the fear of self-outing is, perhaps, preventing legal action.
"Hiding In Hip-Hop" is crammed with enough superstars with cover wives, rappers rolling in the hay with their homies, and enough stellar celebrities and big buff athletes same-sexing it to line a mile of red carpet. Same-sex orgies in private Hollywood Hills abodes and pick-you-out-a-man sex parties in the penthouses of Eastside Manhattan are mere weekly rituals for these brothas (and a whole lot of sistahs) who belong to an exclusive fraternity where effeminate men, overly butch women and openly gay anybodies are strictly forbidden.
These hide-in-plain-site undercover homosexuals believe that they are having their cake and eating it too, but alas, the dark cloud of dishonesty, self-hatred, and the fear of discovery loom furtively above their heads.
And therein lies Mr. Dean's thesis. He judges no one but himself, and in his self-disciplining he does not spare the rod.
From the very beginning, his life, if it were not so tragic, seemed a cruel joke, a set-up for the kind of self-loathing that can prevent a man from loving himself as himself. Mr. Dean's early years factor greatly into his loathing of his sexual nature, just as surely as some others come to hate their dark skin, kinky hair, big noses, African roots.
The first part of the book is gripping melodrama; chronicling events no child should have to go through. Born into the slums of Detroit to a prostitute mother, he was four-years-old when he had a gun put to his head by his mother's rapist when he and his grandmother happened to walk in on the assault. An adult male neighbor later sexually assaults him. His mother contracted AIDS and died of the then deadly disease while he was away at school(he was the first in his family to attend college). His baby brother, born with AIDS, died shortly thereafter.
Arrested for car theft, Dean spent eight months in a Tennessee penitentiary. He remained estranged from his family, except for his beloved Grandmother Pearl. Broke and downtrodden, he resorted to drinking.
Believing that his same-sex attraction was just another tarnish on his young life, he fought his desire for men with a passion.
In spite of all that was going on in his life Dean had been a good student, made admirable grades and, after college, determined that he was going to turn his life around. He ended up in Hollywood, aligned himself with a female friend who was a writer's assistant on the TV show "Friends." He finally landed a job as a production assistant on the set of a porn movie.
Being a hard worker who had made a Scarlet O'Hara vow to himself ("As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again!"), Dean moved quickly through the ranks, each job better than the next, networking with the movers and shakers of the industry, where he found that most of the black men he knew had the same sexual secret as he. Once it was realized that he could be trusted, he was invited into the inner sexual circle where he found himself routinely getting it on with some of the most recognizable black male stars in the business.
He soon discovered that the down low syndrome was even more pervasive in the hip-hop community, where homosexual hook-ups seemed more the rule than the exception.
Eventually, the constant hiding in this secret society and constantly monitoring his conversations, careful not to use the wrong pronoun, was taking its toll. He began pulling away from the scene and meeting more openly gay men. This was beginning to have a positive effect on him. Dean writes:
"These men were not hung up on what others thought of them. They were proud black gay men who lived their lives without fear or shame...They refuse to be unheard."
The death of a down low friend, Kenny Greene, lead singer of the group Intro, who had broken his silence and admitted to being bisexual and having full-blown AIDS in a Sister 2 Sister magazine article convinced Dean to come out.
As the founder of Men's Empowerment, Inc., an organization dedicated to self-empowering men of color and different sexual natures, Terrance Dean has turned his lemon of a life into lemonade for so many, and his book "Hiding In Hip Hop" is not simply a naughty Hollywood tell-all. It is a life lesson. In these pages we all find another way to look at that man in the mirror and like what you see. Looker: A Novel
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