"Screamin' 'No regrets, no regrets at all.'"

—Pusha T

First off: I regret any time I might've taken off of the editorial staff's life with my chronic (so to speak) lateness.

I regret that in Andrew Matson's and my food and hiphop article ("Eating Well with Seattle Hiphop," August 2014), when talking about chef Jerm's musical history, I referred to the 500 Years crew as "400 Years." My sincere apologies to Jerm, Asun, Rajnii, Kasi, Castro, and Gabriel Teodros. I hella hate getting shit wrong, especially about (local, hiphop) music.

I regret not going out enough, not pressing the flesh enough, not seeing enough shows. That's part of the responsibility of doing a column like this—keeping a finger on the pulse and such. At the same time, I've greatly enjoyed keeping my fingers to myself, unsullied by foreign oils and germs. I swear to god, years of scene-making and thousands upon thousands of daps—sometimes, for some fucking reason, within the space of just one conversation—will make you into a glove-wearing, Purell-toting germophobe.

I regret not writing more about the ascent of Raz Simone this year, and for that matter, never calling his guy Lyor Cohen back. Whatevs. I look forward to him having a big 2015. I also regret not writing more about the ridiculous shit that Slow Dance have been doing on the low—from having an album release party on a boat (where they released their album as a custom life jacket with built-in speakers) to renting out China Harbor for a Halloween party, which itself is just amazing to me for some reason. I regret not reviewing a dozen local albums, and I regret that local rappers think that my doing so would've done anything for their, ah, careers whatsoever.

I been rocking with Young Thug's music since I first heard "Keep in Touch," but I can't lie, these days I regret some portion of my support of the guy. Not 'cause he's crazy popular now, or because of his pants or whatever—but because of that interview at BET's Hip Hop Awards. You know, the interview when someone from Bossip asked him about Ferguson, and he replied that he'd rather "leave that up with the critics and the laws and all that other shit," because "we having fun, we iced out, we having money. That's how we doing it." I know, it's that guy—and rule #1 is don't ask a rapper about stuff, ever, 'cause I definitely want some answers that Ja Rule might not have right now—but that is just some shockingly callous-ass shit. Change your name to Young Republican.

Sometimes I think I should regret that I haven't quit this column yet, to be honest. It's been 10 years—somebody else should probably be doing it by now. But when people, IRL and URL, let me know that maybe, just maybe—by me just talking my shit, about hiphop and the world it lives in—I'm helping somebody somehow understand something they didn't, just some little bit? Yeah, I don't regret that, not at all. (Though I do regret how pompous that all sounds.) Later days.