March 05, 2010

By By Katie Allen, The Bookseller

BRIT Award-winning U.K. rapper and producer Dizzee Rascal is to publish a memoir in a joint venture with Canongate Books.

Rascal's indie label Dirtee Stank Recordings has linked up with Canongate to produce the first official Dizzee Rascal book under the label Dirtee Books.

The memoir of the east London rapper, a.k.a. Dylan Mills, is lined up for October, provisionally entitled "The Dizzee Rascal Story." Nick Davies, Canongate editorial director, signed the deal with Nick Detnon at Dirtee Stank Recordings, for world rights for an undisclosed sum.

Canongate and Dirtee Stank will co-publish the title as an illustrated hardback in October 2010 and paperback in summer 2011. The two companies are also planning to release an audiobook, an enhanced e-book edition and an iPhone app simultaneously.

Rascal will co-write the book with music journalist and author Ben Thompson. It will provide an "intimate insight" into his life, including lyrics and photographs, and follow his troubled upbringing, including a near fatal multiple stabbing, to his Mercury Music Prize win in 2003 and commercial success.

The publisher said it was planning "very different" marketing to promote the title, working with Rascal to reach his audience, with an emphasis on digital.

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