If you liked Jay Z's Decoded, you'll love...

Jay Z talks about his rise from a Brooklyn housing project to hip-hop glory in his 2010 memoir, Decoded. What could compare to one of the hottest names in the rap game talking about his early years and his love of rap music? Motion is a hip-hop artist, a poet, an emcee, a playwright and a passionate reader, and she thinks she's found a Canadian companion to the book. This interview originally aired on April 25, 2016.

Jay Z's story as a hip-hop artist and eventually a mogul is one of those rags-to-riches stories that's part of the American mythology. Decoded is part memoir, but also a remix of culture and influences, looking at the streetscape and cityscape that shaped him. It's a really well designed book, which gives it a whole other layer of meaning with imagery that brings up both the tourist side and the behind-the-scenes, underground spaces of New York City. There are also these essays where he reflects on where he comes from and what his life has been like. It forces you to find the emotions behind the lyrical content that he's put out there.

Rap N Roll: Pop Culture Darkly Stated is by Toronto's own Dalton Higgins, a journalist and longtime music writer as well as a pop culture theorist and a cultural curator. I'd call him a "freelance forecaster" too, because he really has always looked at what's the next step, what's the future. It's Toronto, and the space of Toronto really plays in every page of this book. He talks about writing on the TTC, about being a black father who is raising a daughter who's growing up taking the digital age for granted and him now being this bridge between these two worlds, the analogue and the digital. I'd call it a literary remix of style, and that's how it connects to Jay Z's book. It's part essay collection, part memoir, part creative nonfiction and even kind of a Toronto travelogue.

Motion's comments have been edited and condensed.