Scott-Heron's memoir ostensibly focuses on a tour the singer and poet undertook with Stevie Wonder in 1980. But, fittingly for a man whose nimble, articulate music never quite fitted any of the pigeonholes – jazz, soul, hip-hop – it was slung at, this insightful and at times heartbreaking volume flits through his life in a series of revealing vignettes. That's not to say it tells all: pieced together by his publishers after his death in 2011, the book avoids all mention of Scott-Heron's battle with (and jail terms for) cocaine addiction. Instead, he writes with wry humour about the precocious young man who broke the colour bar at his Tennessee school and impressed and enraged his family and teachers in equal measure. He's unsentimental about the music business, which gives his praise for a few contemporaries – John Lennon gets a touching eulogy, Wonder assumes an almost magical aura, and Michael Jackson upstages Scott-Heron so effortlessly at a gig that our hero slips offstage – real power. Sometimes aimless, often brilliant, and flickering with rage and eloquence, this book is a fine epitaph to a man of rare brilliance.