I think Robert Christgau is the last record reviewer on earth who listens to eight records a day twice before giving his opinion on it... Christgau is the last true-blue record critic on earth. He gave us an A-plus [for the Roots' latest album, Rising Down]. That's pretty much who I make my records for. He's like the last of that whole Lester Bangs generation of record reviewers, and I still heed his words. He gets my vision, and I'm cool with that. But half these people, they read Pitchfork, and they base half their opinion and quotes on that.

UPDATE, Thursday, August 21, 2008:

The nature of the Voice easily made that radical pipe dream of a career plan a reality. I can't think of anywhere else my impudent ass would have been able to do the history of Harlem one week, George Clinton and hermeneutics the next, or routinely be encouraged to dispense my arcane opinions on Bootsy Collins, King Sunny Ade, Cecil Taylor, and the Bad Brains, or be given major space to theorize on the trial of eight Black revolutionaries whose sympathies lay with members of the Black Liberation Army and the Weather Underground.

This doesn't even begin to talk about the utterly outrageous liberties I got to take with the English language high and low here because, as was explained to me – by that amazing staff of editors who midwifed and made the paper sing in the '80s: Christgau, M. Mark, Kit Rachlis, Vince Aletti, Ross Wetzsteon, et. al – the Voice was a writer's paper, where editors were encouraged to help you say what you wanted to say in the way you wanted to say it and stay vaguely consistent with the style manual.