Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My father wasn't there the majority of the time. My father, someone who I always honored and looked up to, had been in the military; he had been to war. I would hear stories about different experiences he went through, but as I got older, my father moved away.
An older guy, he's going to show you things that a young man can't show you. He's going to show you how to stay alive. He's going to show you how to turn corners where your young friends will show you how to turn right into that wall, you know what I'm saying?
If I was in office, I'd get together all the chiefs and all the heads and chiefs of staffs of all the countries and explain to them like, 'This is how it's going to be. We need y'all oil and water. Y'all need our money and technology. Now, what y'all gon' do?'
So for [Alexander Wang] to actually put me in a campaign, I was really honored. I'm excited to see how it comes out because I didn't look at the photos on set; I like to just live in the moment and do what I do and let him and his people put their touch on it.
We didn't invent music, so it's been here for a reason, and it has powers for a reason. So we should pay attention to it, because we might not know the clear answers but we should at least acknowledge that it is something there. To not be playin around with it.
Some people are born with very little; some are fortunate enough to have it all. When I grew up, we didn't have much. I had to hustle to get what I wanted... but I had that hunger for more. I didn't always make the right choices, but I learned from my mistakes.
Envision what the end result is supposed to be... what do you want to be when you grow up? Where do you see yourself? Once we identify what the painting on the wall is, it is so much easier to bring in the right colors, canvas and brushes to paint that picture.
You have the core hip-hop, which would just be beats and breaks, more something like what you hear with DJ Premier. Then you get into the more highly produced hip-hop, which is something like what DJ Khaled does. But at some point, it starts to get kind of pop.
There's always something going on on movie sets. Even just from, you know, maybe you come in tired some days and you're not in your best mood. It's different when you're shooting movies because you're on a schedule and you gotta come with your A-game every day.
I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.
I'm gonna fight, and I'm gonna make something out of nothing. That's pretty much the American dream. So, for me, the realization that I could speak to people like that came first on a small scale. Then it just started happening. I started having this vibration.
I have low self-esteem and I always have. Guys always cheated on me with women who were European-looking. You know, the long-hair type. Really beautiful women that left me thinking, 'How I can I compete with that?' Being a regular black girl wasn't good enough.
I think people are enticed by indie rap and every time you have a group going against the grain, they're gonna be like, 'Wow, you did it yourself in 2012, that's impressive - how did you do it? What're you doing that's different? And how can I be a part of it?'
You have to understand for my whole life I have been romanticized by this other side of the fence. This whole darker, egotistically, sort of mean world. I fully embraced that world and three or four years ago I completely walked away from that world, literally.
I love 50 Cent. I know it sounds weird 'cause a lot of kids might not say that right now, but I definitely want to work with 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Coldplay: I want to work with different artists that are going to push my music to a new level. Not just in urban music.
One of my homeboys from my neighborhood had actually taught me how to rap. He was the rapper and we would all go over to his house. It would be like 10 or 12 of us in there and he'd write everybody's rap in the house and would give everybody four or eight bars.
I love 'Robot Chicken,' 'The Boondocks' and 'America's Funniest Home Videos.' Then there's this show called 'The First 48.' It's a documentary about killings where they try and find murderers. They interrogate people and they tell on each other - it's hilarious.
I spent so much time focusing on haters that I forgot about the people that actually love me. And that's who I'm focused on this time around: the people that want to listen. The people that don't want to listen, don't listen. This is for the people that want to.
Everything I do, I do it because it's me. At the end of the day, I only know how to be me. Everything is gonna be authentic, so I think, when it comes down to sayin' certain stuff in lyrics, or whatever the case may be, it's just me bein' me and me bein' honest.
Well I'm not just gon' go and do rap songs. I wanna touch, and maybe help, and see what I can do in these areas.' As I start looking around me, looking at things in ways that I can become helpful, starting at the first thing, water. Something as simple as water.
I speak to everybody. I'm one of those kind of artists that I'm cool with everybody. If they [fans] want to meet me, it's cool. That's as far as it goes. But I'm the cool artist. I shake everybody's hand, try to sign all the autographs, take pictures when I can.
I want a girl with extensions in her hair, Bamboo earrings, at least two pair, A Fendi bag and a bad attitude, That's all I need to get me in a good mood. She can walk with a switch and talk with street slang, I love it when a woman ain't scared to do her thing.
I enjoyed coming home to Crown Heights. There was a certain order to life there. You know, Shabbos, spending time with your family, eating and being in 'shul.' Prayers at nighttime, prayers in the morning. Everyone knows everybody; you walk your kids everywhere.
As you become a legend in the game, you build more doubters than you build supporters. And that's fine. I think that comes with anything that's challenging. I think it even comes with sports. The older that Michael Jordan got, I think the more doubted he became.
Say an A&R person wants me to do this type of song because they feel it is going to work on the radio, I guarantee you that unless the song is real, there is nothing wrong with having success and I want to be successful. That is why I am, but I do it my own way.
A responsibility to be a role model as a father yes, as a man, as a public figure, yes. That responsibility just leads me to do what I feel is right and to conduct myself with the moral standards, principles, and integrity that were instilled in me by my family.
I met Ellie Goulding at the BRITs. She's lovely. I've got a lot of time for her. I gave her congratulations and whatnot and she let me hold her BRIT. That was amazing - once I'd touched one for the first time, I said 'This cannot be the last time I touch a BRIT.
There are different pastors that are good at different things, but one of the things I love is everything I do as a pastor is centered around helping people to understand what God has said in his word, so I don't have to come up with a bunch of new stuff to say.
Why do you think the fans like us - why they prefer our street raps over all that phony stuff out there? Because we're telling the real story of what it's like living in places like Compton. We're giving them reality. We're like reporters. We give them the truth.
You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?
I used to read music books when I was 13. My mom was working at a library. She's a librarian. I would get my mom to check out any kind of books that had anything to do with the music industry. I read a lot about royalities, publishing, marketing, stuff like that.
You gotta be comfortable in your own skin, man. I am, yaknow. Like I said, I am what I am, b. I'm not a gangster, namean. I ain't no killer. Have I used a gun before? Yeah but, just because you use a gun, don't mean you a killer or a gangster. It means you a man.
I can play a song for somebody, and when certain parts come on, I cringe. I might not like my vocal or the way I sang a certain word. Playing intimate shows is when I feel the most vulnerable; you can hear and see everything. Those are the most rewarding as well.
I met Ellie Goulding at the BRITs. She's lovely. I've got a lot of time for her. I gave her congratulations and whatnot and she let me hold her BRIT. That was amazing - once I'd touched one for the first time, I said 'This cannot be the last time I touch a BRIT.'
You're not just making music for your personal use no more, just making music for your homies around you; you're making music for people around the world. Kids in Alaska - like, you're making music for everybody. When I make music, I just think on a larger scale.
What scared me was my mother getting evicted from my house. Seeing them repo my momma's car once. Wondering if I didn't provide for her where she was going to be or if I didn't provide for her, where my sister was going to be. Those are the things that scared me.
Want me to sell my soul, just so I can go gold. You can have the cars, clothes the jewerlies, the houses and hos. Cats do anything for a little bit of fame and a little bit of change. Industry snakes, they ain't friendly. Thought she loved me, she just tricked me.
Put this in your CD-ROM: www dot Canibus dot com. You can find me on the Internet, talkin' to chicks That was sweatin' me off the 'Music Makes Me High' remix. I be talkin' mad trash, tryin to get 'em to laugh. See, if I click and drag long enough I'll get the ass.
I know that I set an example so I don't want niggas following my steps. I don't want anybody to go do the things that I did cuz for real at times I didn't even think I was gonna make it. I was hoping I didn't get killed. I don't want nobody to try to live my life.
Some people are the best lyricists, got the most gas, but they don't know have the personality or the people skills to go out there and network and get they recognition and they name out there. Sometimes people can get in the way of they own selves man, real talk.
I want to judge the nannies that's around my child. I don't want to pay for a nanny that I never met, that I never got a chance to interview. That's not the life I want for my child. I want to be involved 100 percent in all decisions made. This my flesh and blood.
My family was Jehovah's Witnesses, which is a really tough religion. It kind of deterred me from religion for a long time. They still practice, but I don't. But I always remained spiritual, and had a belief that there is a God. I'm trying to find my way, you know?
All the battles and wars I been through, and all the battle scars I got it's been a learning experience. Everything I been through made me the man I am so if it was different I would be different so I would say that I really learned something from every situation.
Moving forward, hopefully the platform my career has given me will allow me to continue to be a voice in culture, whether that's doing lectures on campus or writing books or whatever that looks like. I feel like that's really the lane that I uniquely connect with.
People put their voice everywhere. All through Instagram comments. As minuscule and kind of stupid as that is, at the same time, it's dope. People really feel like, 'I have to say something,' which is sometimes a little much, but like, 'Go ahead, man. Speak away.'
I remember the moment when it hit me. I was walking down Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side, and it felt like I was literally walking out of a jail cell that I had been in. At that moment, I realized I could shave if I wanted. It was up to me and no one else.
My mother was always working for a job, so I guess I was always trained that I should have multiple jobs, multiple aspirations. And I remember she had multiple aspirations, always hearing about her dreams and things she did in the past and things she wanted to do.
If you're a battle rapper on the block, the emcee battle challenger, not writing your rhymes could really hurt you. When you're an artist where maybe the focus is really the talent and the different things you bring to the game, I believe it's more understandable.
It's hard to say goodbye to the streets. It's all how you do it. You can pass by and say, 'What's happening?' and keep it moving, but it's a certain element that'll never be able to roll with you once you get to this level, because that's the separation of it all.
When I was a small boy, if we had a problem, we would fight about it with our fists. We wouldn't shoot somebody, killing them or wounding them. That's not hard to do. I would like people to put down the guns. If you have a problem, talk about it or fight about it.