As Spike Lee goes for his Oscar this weekend, we look back on the movie and the man that almost got him one in 1992

‘If you wish to celebrate yourself, to feel part of something bigger, to express pride in a heritage, you can do better than the cruel sucking nullity of whiteness’

The Truth, Ruth

‘People tended to view the question in one of three ways: Any song that has the word “summer” in the title; a song that dominated the charts and airplay for a summer; or a song that simply evokes the feeling of summer’

Hilton Als on the creation of what would turn out to be a modern American classic