“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”
Originally published September 3, 1988
"Since October 1985, rock has been attacked from city halls, statehouses, fundamentalist pulpits, and the executive echelons of the FBI."
Originally published October 10, 1989
“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”
Originally published June 1, 1985
“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.”
Originally published April 22, 1981
“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.”
April 1, 2020
“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."
Originally published April 30, 1985
From ‘Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song’ in 1971 to Spike Lee’s ‘Malcom X’ in 1992.
Originally published March 17, 1992
“Yeah, it’s a ghetto, boo-yee. But we call it home (or at least we do until after the revolv-olution).”
April 3, 2019
“New York rapped and America listened. Now America is rhyming back.”
April 3, 2019
“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.”
April 3, 2019