Outside the Lines With Rap Genius
Adam Mansbach/J. Period Excerpt #7: GTFTS
Adam Mansbach: The book wasn't supposed to come out until October of 2011. I did a reading in April, so, whatever, six months earlier. And that's when the hype started. The book hit number one on Amazon by the end of April -- like, without existing. The book literally did not exist, hadn't even been printed yet, it was number one on Amazon. And the media frenzy was crazy, and we were frantically rushing it out, trying to get it out by Fathers Day

It was just levels. It kept rising and rising, and just when I thought things were about to die down, they'd get even crazier. From Sam Jackson doing the audiobook to any number of other forms of, just, lunacy

SameOldShawn: What was your favorite reading of it, by the way?

AM: Sam's is great. Werner Herzog's is great. I'm partial to this Filipina grandmother on YouTube, actually, in all seriousness. It's been a much-watched clip. It's great because it's this young woman, this young mother gives the book to her mom to read to her daughter. Without any warning or anything, doesn't tell her what it is. And the woman, she's adorable. She just starts reading it, with no idea where it's going, gets to the first curse, and is shocked and titillated and giggling and is like, "Oh, this is...no, this is so bad! No, you shouldn't be hearing this." But she keeps reading, and every page, it gets funnier and funnier because she continually can't believe what she's reading, and is tut-tutting but also giggling and enjoying it and reading it to her granddaughter. And it's adorable

But anyway, during that whole period of time, I would say literally for eight solid months, I was doing eight hours of interviews every single day