Twelve long form essays, each featuring an individual (with one significant exception) who I felt had not just shaped the decade in rap music but in some way explained it. The project was simple, antiquated in its style and structure. At times it felt like I was sending missives out from a stranded ship floating through the black recesses of space, uncertain if they would ever make it back to Earth. I bring this up because after an invigorating year working on this series, it’s difficult to know if many, or even any people enjoyed it besides me and the handful of dudes who also write for the site who had the time, patience and energy to wade through it. The threads of sites like Nah Right or Oh Word were definitively not salons, but I doubt Picasso and Gertrude Stein ever had as much fun debating Cubism as we did arguing over the brilliance of Young Jeezy’s ad libs - and they certainly couldn’t do it in the comfort of an attic in Midwood, in Ecko sweats and an old beat up Wu-Tang Forever Tour t shirt they bought in the parking lot of the Continental Airlines Arena after their first concert they dragged their dad to in the late 90s. There were the initial pieces of often brilliant, or brilliantly irreverent writing we were discussing, but we’d have the most fun in the comment threads, back when the very idea of a comment thread wasn’t quite as loaded or toxic, or at least it didn’t feel that way. When I first started nearly 15 years ago, what drew me to this strange sub-culture was the sense of community. In 2019, if you’re an older person who isn’t part of the mediaclass and therefore not on Twitter, writing about music, culture, or really anything on the internet can be a lonely enterprise. Please support our hustle by subscribing to Passion of the Weiss on Patreon.

Working the late shift to bring you the best rap writing.

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