The Baddest Bitch in the Room by Sophia Chang is a compelling memoir that has many wonderful stories and more than a few cringe-worthy moments. On the whole, it is an open, honest, and vulnerable memoir of a very interesting life.

If you like rap and hip hop you will find a lot of wonderful behind the scenes stories about a lot of artists you know and likely enjoy. If you are not particularly into the genre, you will still enjoy this if you enjoy memoirs or histories of topics you don't have a strong interest in. What ties all of these music anecdotes together is Sophia Chang.

At times perhaps the baddest bitch in the room but also quite often the least secure and most needy. While some readers want to slam her for this, I applaud her for the willingness to expose both her strengths (which are numerous) and her weaknesses. I guess some readers want the negative glossed over and a memoir to be just all about how great things have been, which is not realistic for anyone.

That said, some of those moments in the book made me wish she had, at the time, the self confidence to know that no other person in the world is worth demeaning yourself. However, truth be told, we have all had those moments, even if we try to deny it and point fingers at people who have them and admit to them.

I would recommend this to readers of entertainment memoirs as well as fans of rap and hip hop. Just read with more empathy and less self-righteous judgement.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Goodreads First Reads. ( )

This ended up being less about the hidden corners of the music industry and more of a woman-coming-into-her-own memoir. But the setting and players were still fun and offbeat—Chang managed members of the Wu-Tang clan and other hip-hop stars, and was very immersed in that world as well as being partnered for many years with a Buddhist monk, who's the father of her two kids—and I really liked her candor about sex, money, friendship, and professional power. ( )