Sanyika Shakur Monster Analysis

Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member is written by Sanyika Shakur. This novel is about his life and experiences within the Crips gang in South Central Los Angeles. Shakur released his memoir in 1993, after turning his life around while inside the prison system. His given name at birth was Kody Scott and at just eleven years old, Kody was initiated into the Crips after shooting a rival gang member and later earned himself the street name of Monster due to his horrifying acts of violence. Throughout his recount of his life and experiences inside the gang and inside various prison institutions, Shakur paints a very vivid picture of the places and spaces which he helped to create, and, in turn, helped to create him, and which he frequented throughout his life. These spaces are marked by a particular street culture and show the complexity of how inequality has helped to create and maintain these places. Sanyika Shakur grew up in South Central Los Angeles, which he deemed the “concrete jungle battlefield of the Crips and Bloods” (Shakur 1993). This is viewed as a place existing

They are associated with gangs and gang life and so, must be poor, uneducated, and incapable of leading a legitimate lifestyle. However, as Doreen Massey points out in her podcast on space, it is important to understand that every single person has a different story and those stories combine to create a particular culture in a place. “It is space that presents us with the question of the social” (Massey 2013) to Massey, this question of the social relates directly to the issue of how we live together as a society. Within street culture, the people live together in a constant duality of war and peace. There is peace within their own specific groups, enough to provide a sense of a safe space, while also being continually at war with the neighbours that are just a few streets