“For Kane, as for James Brown, Hendrix, Coltrane, Beethoven (Black, caucasianized for the record), and other new music makers, here the future of music (dope) meets Black life's particularly present-day dick­-downs (dog food).”

“The scene now is one of club kids who don't even have a 'fuck the rules' men­tality — they don't know any rules to fuck. They manage to combine a youthful, energetic wholesomeness with a jaded sense of decadence, as typified by their major domo, 22-year-old Michael Alig”

“I like Christmas music. I like the schlock and I like the religion. I like sen­timental innocence and I like trancing out on the same standards sung and resung. So here, with what I sincerely hope is the right mix of Christian charity and obsessed consumerism, is a guide to some of the season's better music”

“Incidents of violence against black people in the United States have reached epidemic proportions. When the police department — which is supposed to stop these crimes — is in fact implicated in them, genocide as official policy against black Americans cannot be far behind”

“At his best, Joseph Campbell was merely one of the greatest popu­lar writers on mythology who ever lived.”

“These transcontinental urban griots echo the de­spair, pain, and anger of the South Bronx and Harlem (the world's two major rap centers), which a lot of the cool-jerk white liberals and b.s. black bourgeoisie don't want to hear.”

“With the gentrification of Chelsea came trouble. Gay witchhunts abound. There have been un­provoked attacks on gay males by bands of white teenagers, with robbery almost an afterthought”

Father Gigante has rebuilt much of the South Bronx. But who has profited more, his parish­ioners or the mob family run by his own brother?

“Verta maintains that the Gullah, who originally spoke a language they called Ngulla, were from Angola and that in prehistory — you know, when the continents were all at­tached — what is now South Carolina was joined to what is now Angola”

“People who don't know any better think Gullah people talk funny. Those in the know realize that Gullah is a bona fide dialect and are confident in the scholarly thesis that 'Gullah' is a contrac­tion of 'Angola.'”