Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
What was once easy became confused and hard, which brings us back to the mystic question, who is God?
When I write I get to the point where I slow down and I gotta go back into the world and live nahmean.
No Doubt is one of the groups that I think everybody listens to, man, and everybody loves Gwen Stefani.
A lot of reasons I didn't do records with people is because I never wanted their light to reflect on me.
I had a little more freedom when I started sampling because you could actually do what you wanted to do.
I love listening to old records to keep nostalgic feeling; it allows me to not lose the love for hip-hop.
I wake you up and as I stare in your face, you seem stunned. Remember me? The one you got your idea from?
I love Jay-Z, I love Kanye, and I praise the way he's been able to bring more business out of the jungle.
Playing the sax and then enjoying jazz music man. It's like I learned how to find words inside of the beat.
I'm definitely one of them artists that loves putting the track on and having fun with it, but in my own way.
Playing the sax and then enjoying jazz music, man - it's like I learned how to find words inside of the beat.
Subconsciously, Islam took over me so it was like eighty or ninety percent of the fabric of the person I was.
Subconsciously, Islam took over me, so it was like eighty or ninety percent of the fabric of the person I was.
Maybe I'm too sensitive to the struggle, but I think a lot of people that listen to music are trying to escape.
You've really got to appreciate an artist that's really outspoken and feels like his music can change the world.
I loved the hood and still love the hood but I had to realize like Ra you a rapper now you're in the public eye.
I feel that when we leave here I think it's just another transition and whatever it is I hope I'm prepared for it.
Everything I did on the 'Paid in Full' album and those first three albums, I wrote everything right in the studio.
You grow, you mature, you live, and you learn. You get a little wiser, and you learn better ways to handle things.
I used to roll up: this is a hold up, ain't nuthin funny. Stop smiling, be still, don't nuthin move but the money.
And I'll break, when I'm through breakin, I'll leave you broke, Drop the mic when I'm finished, and watch it smoke
I was heavily influenced by Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Caz, but I kind of wanted to take it somewhere else.
My whole thing is if it wasn't for people like ya'll and people like them I wouldn't be me. I love every minute of it.
What's powerful about the mind, the mind comes through every physical and when the physical goes the mind still exists.
When I broke up with Eric B., I went on a little hiatus. Then all I was trying do is find producers. It's real hard, man.
Now I got kids and I'm more wise now. Life means more to me than having fun. I'm more calm, more wise, and more cautious.
To know that I was being heard on the radio, it made me feel as if I was, I guess, spread across New York. It was incredible.
Don't even go to the studio if you don't think that your music's going to do something. You're wasting your time and my time.
Every time someone come out with an album don't change the whole style up but don't do what they are expecting. Surprise them.
I think it's a combination of my peoples that I grew up under, places that I hung out is what contributed to where I'm at now.
Music, life, a lot of the things that we go through in the world, a lot of questions that we have about the world inspires me.
You gotta let the fans shine their glory the way they want. It's like I have a million bosses and my job is to make them happy.
We gotta let hip-hop grow. We gotta let it go through its different phases throughout the different places that's accepting it.
I always had deep respect for my peoples 'cause of the love they gave me and the know how that they showed me through the years.
I'm very smart with my paper! I stopped buying things for myself a long time ago - now I just buy things for my kids or my wife.
I never sold drugs. A lot of people used to think I was that dude but I never sold a crumb. I used to always be upset with that.
You know, 'Paid in Full' is a classic album, man. It kind of got me to where I am now, so I can never get tired of 'Paid in Full.'
People always tell me that they grew up with me - like I'm their brother or uncle or some other family member. That keeps me going.
There's so many different ways to write a rhyme its stupid man. I don't understand why the majority of the rap game sounds the same.
Dabbling in music and being in music when I was young I had my own view of what I thought music was whether it was jazz, r&b, or hip hop.
You can look in a book of wrong and learn more right. If you're reading a book that has all wrong in it , you're learning what not to do.
Sometimes people say yo do you think rap changed you. No doubt it changed me. If I wasn't making records I'd still be hanging every night.
I'm one dude and when I make my bed I lay in it but don't stereotype me. Never sold a crumb to this day and I don't do nothing on the side.
If something comes at me of course I'm gonna handle my business but I'm not the type to provoke the bullshit so I don't really get a lot of that.
It is what it is but I do me and I think people respect that. They see me out in the hood by myself or with wifey and I don't have no bodyguards.
You can't have 12 records on your album and none of them sound alike. You gotta kind of have something to make them say, 'That sounds like Rakim.'
I start to think, and then I sink Into the paper like I was ink When I'm writing, I'm trapped in between the lines I escape when I finish the rhyme.
Back in the day, rappers were 'bump bump bump ba bump ba bump.' They was rhyming like that, but I was like, 'bababa bump bump babum ba babump bababa bump.'
I love what I live, and I live Islam, so I applied it to everything I do. I applied it to my rhymes, and I felt that I wanted the people to know what I knew.
I stick to my guns - that's what keeps me going as an artist. Stevie Wonder never changed from what he wanted to do, and each new album that came along was dope.