Parker, Derrick

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Parker, Derrick

PERSONAL: Male.

CAREER: Author, 2006—. Former head of New York Police Department special forces unit. Rap-related crime expert, appearing in Rolling Stone, New York magazine, Blender, Vibe, New York Times, Newsday, and other magazines and newspapers; also appeared on television, including MTV, Fox, VH1, Unsolved Mysteries, and CourtTV.

WRITINGS

(With Matt Diehl) Notorious C.O.P.: The Inside Story of the Tupac, Biggie, and Jam Master Jay Investigations from the NYPD’s First “Hip-Hop Cop,” St. Martin’s Press (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:“Derrick Parker,” wrote Mark Lelinwalla on the Web site Vibe.com, “was the Hip Hop Cop, who was put on assignment to monitor and keep tab on all of moves that MCs in the city were making.” In Notorious C.O.P.: The Inside Story of the Tupac, Biggie, and Jam Master Jay Investigationsfrom the NYPD’s First “Hip-Hop Cop,” Parker relates stories drawn from his years keeping track of the violence associated with major rap artists. “I had to earn the respect of the rappers,” Parker told Abran Maldonado in an interview on AllHipHop.com, “not to go out there and treat them all like criminals; you can’t do that in the rap community. I earned their respect and that’s why they could come to me and I can go to the people that other cops couldn’t approach.” Although Parker created a rapport with major rap figures, he failed to win the backing of his colleagues, a writer for Kirkus Reviews stated, “giving the impression [in Notorious C.O.P.] that he was often fighting a lone battle against hip-hop-related crime.” “Full of engaging detail,” declared Mike Tribby in his Booklist review of the volume, “this is a gritty trip to the nexus of big-money rap and ongoing gang rivalries.” “Parker,” concluded a Publishers Weekly contributor, “proves his assertion that there is a ‘seemingly insurmountable divide between the NYPD and the hip-hop world.’”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 15, 2006, Mike Tribby, review of Notorious C.O.P.: The Inside Story of the Tupac, Biggie, and Jam Master Jay Investigations from the NYPD’s First “Hip-Hop Cop,” p. 10.

Entertainment Weekly, July 21, 2006, Michael Endelman, Chris Willman, Gilbert Cruz, and Clark Collis, “Chapter and Verse,” p. 69.

Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2006, review of Notorious C.O.P., p. 509.

Library Journal, June 15, 2006, Craig Shufelt, review of Notorious C.O.P., p. 72.

New York Times Book Review, October 1, 2006, Dave Itzkoff, “Music Chronicle.”

Publishers Weekly, May 1, 2006, review of Notorious C.O.P., p. 50.