"I was a John Peel listener like anyone who had any taste, any lonely soul - there were a lot of us and it was great when we all got together. He played this. I'd never heard anything like it. It was around that period after the Mexico Olympics and the Black Power protest and to this day, surely, this must be the first hip-hop record, not in terms of its music composition but in terms of the content. Everything is there. It is supreme. I wanted to know more about it, so I went out and bought some books - Soul On Ice, Seize The Time, all those things. That's really powerful. John was never quite as bumbling as he liked people to think."

"It’s almost like these three sisters are a part of my family... I grew up in Sweden (New York, too, and by the time I read this book, was making my own life in London in my late teens). The world around me was not exactly celebrating cultural diversity... this book, and books like “The Color Purple,” “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” and “Beloved,” took me by the hand, held me, beckoned me into womanhood, aroused a love of my heritage, and love for myself. I ate this book in one serving. It was passed down my by mother... again, I’ve given it to my daughters and waited, impatiently, to talk to them about it as they’ve read."