Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The old West Coast rappers are the way I rap; they weren't always on beat but it was about telling a story. I'm just a little more modern so it doesn't sound exactly the same.
As with all the other rappers I've worked with, Biggie and I shared common ground. Even though Biggie grew up in Brooklyn and I grew up in Chicago, we came from the same 'hood.
I hate when rappers do interviews. They say stuff like, 'If I wasn't doing this, I'd be dead or in jail.' Like, damn, those are the only two options? What about managing Kinkos?
The cats that are doing they thing, you have to search to really find them, to find rappers that can actually rap and speak messages in the music. That's not a good thing at all.
People in rock had this idea that rappers aren't talented. In my opinion we're better writers, we think deeper, and our concepts are harder - Rap evolves faster than any other genre.
I don't knock material rappers, but let me hear it in a different way. How many songs do I have to hear about rims on a car? It's ridiculous. There's no substance. It's a hollow shell.
I always had pressure on myself through my life. I put pressure on myself and not from other people. I always wanted to be one of the hottest rappers. So the pressure comes from myself.
I was a rapper who was 13 or 14 years old at one point, and it was a dream. I used to see videos of other rappers around the world, and I used to hope that I could be like that one day.
A lot of rappers don't have to go through what I had to go through as a singer. I was always in a bubble that they put me in, but I was always punching out. It was a tough line to walk.
Female rappers get it the hardest. You have to be a girl, yet you have to be just as hard as the guys. I think some female rappers get scared out of the business before they can make it.
I see N.Y. hip-hop like I see N.Y. streets. N.Y. streets are grimy; it's a grind. N.Y. rappers are hustlers - whatever sound is in, we can adapt to that; there's nothing wrong with that.
People said that way back in the early days I was probably one of the first rappers; the reason is that I couldn't sing, so I had to talk! Lou Reed was probably the one who started it all.
I've always used Southern rappers in epigraphs for my novels. For 'Sing, Unburied, Sing,' I wanted to use Big K.R.I.T. - because I have so much respect for the lyrical depth of their music.
I believe samurai in the Edo period and modern hip-hop artists have something in common. Rappers open the way to their future with one microphone; samurai decided their fate with one sword.
Biggie has definitely stood the test of time. He's the reason Jay-Z and loads of other rappers are who they are. His flow and wordplay is brilliant - the stories he would tell are just nuts.
When I saw rappers in the '90s cameo in films - all of those '90s rappers - it seemed like whenever you chucked a rapper in a film, they could just act. It seemed like all rappers could act.
I like underground rappers - Cory Gunz is a young kid that's been really doing his thing. I'm a Gym Class Heroes type of fan even though they're not new, but they're definitely trendsetters.
By the end of high school, I was interning for no school credit, no money, no nothing, for Jonny Shipes. He was my first entry into going to XXL, being around rappers, meeting Yams and A$AP.
They respect rappers in the U.S., but in England, it's the Queen's country. She'll forever be putting out the message on these BBC networks that there's no hood: it's tea and red phoneboxes.
I remember rap music. We used to party and dance off of it. Today it's all about a whole different angle... Rappers are going against each other, and it's more of a bragging, boasting thing.
I'm so absolutely pro-Denver. I wrote a fake hip-hop song about Denver. I've been claiming Denver. Part of the joke of the song is nobody was really claiming Denver - no rappers, no comedians.
So I think hip-hop is moving and is going to continue to move in the direction of rappers just being honest with themselves, whether you're talking about Common and Mos Def or Nas and 50 cent.
I don't consider myself an A-list celebrity or a big dog, but every time I meet somebody, even rappers who've been in the game for years... they're like, 'Man, I'm trying to get on your level.'
No U.K. rapper has been in my position; there are loads of big rappers like Tinie Tempah or Skepta, but no one has done what I have: had mainstream success with underground music and pop music.
A lot of the time, people think rappers just live inside this bubble. No, the reality is there is conversation that happens. It's not this one-dimensional thing. There's reality that takes place.
It's always cool when you get immortalized on records. I am just happy that I have gotten to the level where rappers who can actually rap say my name in records, regardless if it's a diss or not.
When I was little I definitely listened to a lot of DMX and 50 Cent. Those were probably the two main rappers I was listening to when I was young, but my favorite rapper has always been Lil Wayne.
I plan to break the barriers that people try to trap female rappers in. This isn't about 'Oh she sounds good for a female rapper,' it's about 'Yo, she sounds really good on this and can really rap!'
I didn't know of any rappers in Charlotte. Not to sound like I'm bragging, but I brought the music scene alive and shed the proper light on it. I took it to a whole other level when I started rapping.
Nas is one of my favorite rappers because you don't get any of that flashy stuntin'; you get the real, just raw bars. The way he tells stories and his vibe, I think we would make great music together.
For years I've been seeing my young brothers wearing Scarface T-shirts, John Gotti T-shirts, Rick James T-shirts. We don't have any icons or idols to look up to, just rappers and professional athletes.
I just have certain interests in different things, and they inspire me to write. I would encourage aspiring artists or MCs or rappers to be able to grab from many different sources to create your story.
My record label always says you shouldn't talk about money because it makes people extremely uncomfortable. Refugees can't talk about money. Rappers can talk about money; refugees can't talk about money.
Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears all the rappers, they're doing my dances and they're making billions doing my dances. When they do that little thing they do with their hands that's The Fly and The Pony.
I think swag is very important to rappers. It's the overall appearance and style of an artist - these blue shorts and this blue hat and this $80,000 chain, this jewelry and all these tattoos, that's swag.
I try to really capitalize off of what other rappers really can't do. There are opportunities that rappers I love simply can't get, because... you know... I don't have the tattoos; I have a different image.
For some reason, we have completely separated Christians who are rappers, and we have separated, I guess, regular rappers. I feel that we should be able to mingle, enjoy each other's company, and trade ideas.
Pete Rock, CL Smooth, all this East Coast stuff - that's kind of, like, the rappers I first admired. I wanna rap just like them because I just thought they were so hard. I thought their delivery was so crazy.
When you have legends who want to do music with you, and you befriend the Kendrick Lamars and the Chance the Rappers, that's due to you really being authentically hip-hop and not being contemporary Christian.
The L.A. rap scene is popping again because rappers stopped saying 'West Coast.' Nobody says that anymore. Fans of L.A. music were reaching and saying, 'This is West Coast music,' because nobody else liked it.
DJs play a big responsibility of what hip-hop is doing... At the end of the day, it's up to us to control and to own hip-hop. DJs need to challenge us rappers. They got so much power, they need to challenge us.
There are not many people that I respect more than rappers. I'm a huge fan of hip hop. It's incredible, one of the most influential things to me. It takes real genius to be able to do well. It's a very deep art form.
In America, they don't need to look outside their country for anything, so they definitely don't need to look elsewhere for rappers with weird accents that they have to get accustomed to, which is like homework to them.
I paid attention to the music industry and watching a lot of stuff on TV, behind-the-scenes stuff on old DVDs, and paying attention to interviews from artists and rappers and just really watching a lot of stuff as a kid.
I grew up around a bunch of rappers and street dudes and they were always like: 'yo! She's a little different but she's her.' They respected it because you know it wasn't forced, I wasn't posing to be something I wasn't.
If an athlete plays the guitar, they say, 'That's so cool, he can play the guitar.' But if a guy raps, they say, 'Please don't be another rapper,' only because the rappers are so bad. I promise I'm not anything like that.
What Jazzy Jeff and rappers like him talk about is phony stuff. They're not into street raps, into telling what's really happening out there. They're talking about what the white world and the white kids can identity with.
When I made '1983,' there were a bunch of tracks that were in the early drafts that didn't make it because they just sounded like tracks for rappers, and that's not really the sound I look for when I produce my own albums.
I want people to follow their dreams, yes... but I'm not interested in telling young black kids how to be rappers... I want to show them that there's so many other paths you can take, besides a rapper or basketball player.
When you're a college student interested in music, you hear all these rappers talking about dropping out. For me, when I heard someone like J. Cole rapping about school and staying in school...it inspired me to keep going.