New Book Chronicles Coming of Age in the Hip Hop Generation

Bars for Days

Mic Nickels

Bars for Days by Mic Nickels

A deeply intelligent and keen look at how music and the dedication of family transformed one man’s life and inspires him to have hope for better days to come.”

— Bars for Days

NEW YORK, NY, US, January 18, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- He was born Michael Ray Winick and had fate not stepped in, he would have had a comfortable, conventional and upper-middle class life as the son of a nice Jewish doctor and his wife. Then a nurse broke the rules and allowed 18-year-old Donna Lynn Winick to hold her baby before he was given up for adoption—and she never let him go. 

The journey from son of a single, teenaged mother to becoming a rapper, musician, hip hop emcee and producer Mic Nickels is laid down with clarity and precision in the recently released BARS FOR DAYS.

Nickels writes his thrumming memoir with an ethnographer’s eye for human behavior and a gifted lyricist’s ear for the rhythm and

meaning of words. In a voice reminiscent of an old friend catching up during a car trip, Nickels recounts the twists, turns and tumultuous experiences of coming of age in the hip hop generation with an absentee father and a mother who struggled with addiction, but surrounded by a large, loving and opinionated family.

It is this dedication to family that serves as the foundation of Nickel’s examination of his entry into a world where young musicians created a musical genre that had never before existed, and the ideals that they sought to impart through their music. We follow Nickels as he tends bar at a comedy club in Miami and a jazz club in New York City, meets celebrities and emcees from the underground Hip Hop community, and begins to rise in the music industry.

His failures and successes in music and his world travels underscore the challenges of becoming a long-distance father and watching his beloved mother fight for her life, even as he struggles to survive an early case of Covid-19. Ultimately, BARS FOR DAYS is a deeply intelligent and keen look at how music and the dedication of family transformed one man’s life and inspires him – and us – to have hope for better days to come.

BARS FOR DAYS is available on Amazon and other popular retail outlets where books are sold.

MIC NICKELS is a New York-based rapper with more than 20 years in the game, also known as Nickel Five or Nickel Killsmics. His continued dedication to his craft has been an inspiration for underground indie artists. Whether as a solo artist, or front man for jazz-fused hip hop band, Nickel and Dime Ops, this emcee and producer has consistently recorded and released numerous albums, making countless collaborations with an international hip hop crew called MHB which he co-founded, as well as various artists across the globe. In the studio he has worked with several Grammy Award-winning and nominated artists, such as Ian Hendrickson-Smith from The Roots, Method Man from the Wu Tang Clan, Lawrence Leathers, Brandon “Bizzy” Hollemon, Jean Baylor, and more. He has made hundreds of performances, carrying a weekly residency at Smoke Jazz Club in Manhattan for over eight years, and appeared in venues across the United States and in Europe, opening for acts such as Pitbull, Gregory Porter, Jeru the Damaja, The Alkaholiks, The Skatalites, Biz Markie, and more. His latest solo album, and tenth release, Bars for Days, was released December 2021.