Angie Thomas tackles race, class and viral fame in new book On The Come Up

In 2017, Angie Thomas' debut novel The Hate U Give turned her into a New York Times bestselling author and one of the most talked-about new writers of young adult fiction.

Thomas changed the face of the genre by creating space for the kind of young female heroes she could never find in the books she read as a teenager.

The Hate U Give was also adapted into an acclaimed feature film starring Amandla Stenberg and Regina Hall. Now, two years later, Thomas has returned with On The Come Up, a young adult novel she sees as her ode to hip hop.

Thomas' second book tells the story of Brianna Jackson, a 16-year-old battle rap phenom who dreams of becoming the next big thing in hip hop. When her first song goes viral, for all the wrong reasons, she learns some powerful lessons about freedom of speech, personal accountability and the not-so-cool side of internet fame.

Today, Thomas joins Tom Power live in the q studio to talk about her new book and the ways the story uses hip hop to explore the tensions between social media culture, freedom of speech and black womanhood.

"Your dreams matter. At the end of The Hate U Give in the acknowledgments, I told them, your lives matter, your dreams matter — be roses in concrete and I really wanted to play on that with this book moreso. I wanted to say to them, even though you are going through all of these things, all of these struggles, all of these situations, that does not mean that you can't be a dreamer or that you can't pursue your dreams so I hope that they take that from the book."

— Produced by ​Tyrone Callender