Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My real name's Rakim - my parents named me after the god MC himself.
Knowing what I know now, if I could have chosen parents, I would have chosen exactly the ones God selected for me.
My parents were like, 'Oh my God,' when I said I was going into fashion - they pictured me with a rolling rack on Seventh Avenue.
My foster parents were very religious. They told me that they had not decided to take me in, rather that it was God that had decided it for them.
Some parents let their kids sleep at other people's houses, where they drink alcohol, watch TV for hours and God knows what else. But if you say you have to get all A's and practice the violin for two hours, then they consider that abusive. That upsets me.
I'm a Roman Catholic. Or was. I was brought up that way and used to say my prayers every night, but I don't pray to God any more. I might use the usual phrases I picked up from my parents, 'Oh, if God spares me next year...' or 'Please God...' but they're only phrases.
As much as I loved the model of St. Francis, I realized that I couldn't afford to be poor, because unlike St. Francis, I'm not celibate. I was enlightened that God's call to me was not poverty but generosity and simplicity. And I had to go back to the lesson I learned from my parents: that is, simplicity.