I know I like to use old school rock critics as occasional punching bags — as if I’m a dude in my 20s who loves Vivian Girls or something — but every now and then one of them writes something that totally shuts me up. Robert Christgau’s latest essay on Lil Wayne is so perfectly illuminating, and even charmingly self-deprecating, that it was nearly impossible to pick one quote. So I’m going with this one because it’s something I really never considered:

As even casual observers are dimly aware, Lil Wayne acquired three luxury residences, three babymamas, double-platinum certification, untold blunts, and the attention of many police departments by recording every day and giving the results away.

Which is totally true: Wayne became a human Napster and made FREE a sustainable business model. If the music industry really wanted to save itself, record executives would be drinking cough syrup right now.