To be clear, I am only commenting on my own writing and approach. I’m not apologizing for being a hip-hop fan or for writing about music I love, but I do wish I had gone about doing so with a little more humility and awareness at times. I am more aware now about how I hold and take up space in communities, and I hope that is reflected in my more recent writing. I didn’t always appreciate that incredibly vital, important music doesn’t always have vital, important subject matter.

I wasted too much virtual ink criticizing artists for being materialistic and rapping about having fun vs. There were times when my attitude towards the people making and consuming the art was patronizing and paternalistic. I came to hip-hop through punk rock, and for a long time I felt rappers should be rapping about the stuff I thought was important, not what was meaningful to them. While for the most part my reviews hold up, there is stuff in there that doesn’t reflect how I currently engage with hip-hop.

I’ve been rereading some of the reviews I wrote in the last decade, and it has been a learning experience. One of the many benefits of RR’s new look is that it is easy to look at reviews by author.