“Rakim's persona is that of a sagacious gangster, like Miles Davis's ... We're talking about that school of self-confirmed bad-assed-ness, where you don't need spectators to know you're looking sugarshit sharp. Drop Miles or Rakim on the moon, they'd still be chilly-most”
“Black culture doesn’t lack for modernist and postmodernist artists, just their critical equivalents. And now that, like Spielberg’s Poltergeist, they’re here, might as well face up to the fact that there’s no avoiding the recondite little suckers”
“Like other forms of ghetto street culture — graffiti, verbal dueling, rapping — breaking is a public arena for the flamboyant triumph of virility, wit, and skill. In short, of style.”
“3rd Bass want to jump out there with the real kids on the block and be judged by the standards set at the source, the hip street culture of urban black Americans.”
“He doesn’t battle other rappers or spinners for record sales. Instead he engages wily, older businessmen in treacherous battles for survival. Russell’s not going bald ’cause it’s been easy."
“Rap is about using fighting words, instead of fighting. Instead of saying ‘Let’s fight,’ people say, ‘Let’s battle.’ I bet you rap has saved a lot of lives.”
