“Blunts have made it fashionable to smoke pot again. Just about no­body in hip hop circles smokes crack or cocaine anymore.”

“One by one the idols of other nations visited us, but those with­out a Yankee sponsor barely registered as blips on the scale of mass appeal.”

“Here was a messenger whose lyr­ics call attention to our condition, to the reasons for suffering: The music brings lightness to the feet and makes them dance, but the beat is a marching drum, a call to struggle”