The Bushwick Bill story is complex, more complex than a batch of controversial lyrics and a record cover would suggest...Why Bushwick Bill Matters does that complexity justice, and gives a Houston hip-hop legend his due.
~Houstonia
[Hughes is] expert at interweaving music criticism, cultural history, disability studies, and a touch of personal reflection [in Why Bushwick Bill Matters]. Hughes is well-studied and acutely informed on race and music.
~Rain Taxi
Why Bushwick Bill Matters is invaluable for its examination of how race, gender, and disability shaped Bushwick Bill’s contributions to hip-hop culture and to the music industry...Hughes proves that Scarface was not the only member of the Geto Boys to have a lasting impact on hip-hop music. Bushwick Bill deserves that distinction, too.
~Journal of Popular Music Studies
This small, well-considered, deeply felt, and often very funny volume is invaluable in the continued discourse of difficult people making difficult work, which seems necessary for the continued, spiky, and difficult possibility of disabled selfhood and expression.
~Canadian Journal of Disability Studies