Scars of the Soul Are Why Kids Wear Bandages When They Don't Have Bruises is a confessional, stylistic account (in the Joan Didion tradition) of coming of age in the Bronx alongside the birth and evolution of hip-hop culture. This essay collection presents a journalistic mosaic of seminal figures in hip-hop, documentary essays exploring the social decay of hip-hop, and a substantial element of memoir, as well as observations on the generational issues of urban America.<BR>Miles Marshall Lewis captures the political ambitions of Russell Simmons, the Black Spades gang foundation of Afrika Bambaataa and the Universal Zulu Nation, the spiritual sensibility of KRS-One and the Temple of Hiphop, and the debate on the materialistic, violent direction of hip-hop culture. Interpreting the mood and inner-city atmosphere that birthed the counterculture of hip-hop, Bronx native Lewis details the circumstances of his father's heroin addiction, his mother's Southern spirituality, his grandfather's career as a Harlem numbers runner, and his own journey from a tenement-building upbringing to worldwide travels - with hip-hop training his steps.