The paper‟s main argument is the idea that the city plays a key role in formation of contemporary African American identity. To be more specific, the paper argues that the city is crucial in the experience of young black men living in the postindustrial variation of inner-city neighborhoods, i.e. the hood, since the paper presents its main argument through a reading of four different coming-of-age narratives: John Singleton‟s Boyz n the Hood (1991), Allen and Albert Hughes‟ Menace II Society (1993), Paul Beatty‟s the White Boy Shuffle (1996) and Kendrick Lamar‟s good kid m.A.A.d city (2012). Each of the four texts follows young black men as they navigate the issues that are emblematic of life in the hood – institutionalized racial segregation, police surveillance, police brutality, poverty, gang violence, crime, peer pressure, the lure of drugs and drug dealing, etc. The paper argues that these issues are so prevalent in the hood that protagonists of these narratives are forced to modify their identities in accordance with the identity that such an environment expects from them. As part of its analysis, the paper first provides a historical overview of African American life in the city. Then, it provides a reading of each of the texts mentioned above in terms of their depiction of issues that plague contemporary inner-city neighborhoods and how these issues influence lives of young black men.