Great Idea, unfortunately didn't deliver

I had such high hopes for "Life Lessons From Hip-Hop". I'm always looking for good African American literature for my classroom. Unfortunately, this one did not deliver. Not necessarily the content, but the overwhelming written material. I can't imagine any middle school or high school student not loosing interest. A better approach would have been a portrait of the artist with a paragraph of his/her background, and a quote/belief from the artist.
I do with this author the best, as I'm a strong believer in having more of these types of books available to inner-city students.