(Faber and Faber, Inc)

www.fsgbooks.com

There have been different hip-hop supergroups since 1993, but none of them have reinvented the genre like Wu-Tang Clan did. Together, RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa and Ol' Dirty Bastard would make history with the flawless Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers, while individually, they would go on with various solo projects.

But then, in 2004, Ol' Dirty Bastard died (with a bag of coke in his stomach). Yet among all the nostalgic shout-outs from the remaining members of Wu-Tang, the details about ODB's downfall (his problems with crack cocaine; his jail stints; his possible mental illness) have barely been mentioned - a phenomena writer Jaime Lowe tries to unravel with her latest, Digging for Dirt: The Life and Death of ODB.

A combination of a biography of OBD and a memoir of her interactions with him, Lowe attempts to trace ODB's life after Wu-Tang got famous, while also explaining her reasoning: "I want to unmask the enigmatic MC because he deserves to be more than a teary footnote in hip-hop history, more than couple of clucks and a head shake - he deserves to be remembered as a full-fledged artist and man."

Yet Lowe's book doesn't go all the way in delivering her promise. Instead, it focuses too much on Lowe's personal feelings about ODB; it often seems overwritten as she gushes for pages upon pages about how he was a "genius." So much of the book is penned in a glowing, praising tone that it's hard to figure out exactly where Lowe's worship of OBD ends (if it ever does). Instead, the book is wordy, repetitive and unnecessary long - and though it is interesting in its chronicle of ODB's downward spiral, it reads too much like a fan's love letter to be taken seriously. ROXANA HADADI