Nas was playing a role on Illmatic, even if it was himself. By constructing this persona, Nas not only laid out his own career for the next decade plus, but the careers of dozens of other rappers who were able to use their considerable skills to develop similar personas. His brazen ambition has become a road map for every rapper who hopes to reach an artistic peak. It seems right that Nas would make Illmatic at the age when maturity begins to turn boys into men. This was,...

Perfect for the Scrooge in your life—a profane, hilarious takedown of all things cute and cuddly, by the author of the blog sensation of (almost) the same nameAttention, all you clumsy pandas, lovable puffins, huggable bunnies, and penguins that elicit ooohs and aaahs: The jig is up! We have lived under your furry fists for too long.There is a cute and present danger lurking out there–in the wild, in the zoos, and sometimes even in our very own homes. Spurr...

Nas was playing a role on Illmatic, even if it was himself. By constructing this persona, Nas not only laid out his own career for the next decade plus, but the careers of dozens of other rappers who were able to use their considerable skills to develop similar personas. His brazen ambition has become a road map for every rapper who hopes to reach an artistic peak. It seems right that Nas would make Illmatic at the age when maturity begins to turn boys into men. This was, in many regards, ...