Rap Quotations | Page 6

At least the rap metal stuff is good, but it's not really my bag. I've been listening to the radio since we've been touring the past month, because we don't get it most of the time.

I tried to make a 'When Doves Cry' in a rap version. I used a lot of instruments and I broke it down like I thought Prince would do, and that's the song I sent to Big Boi.

For me, I like old-school rap music. There was a time when music was so, so rich overall, and the content of what people talked about was so deep on every level, song-for-song, pound-for-pound, and on radio, there was so much content. I gravitate more towards that type of music, to be honest.

It's premature to say the audience is changing wholesale. Rap is going to change and audience is being developed as it changes. ... But there will always be a place for commercial rap that glorifies money and violence. People like to hear that. There's something refreshing about bravado in music. But there will always be a place for something that's thoughtful and well-informed. I'm confident there's a place for these guys. ... There needs to be a voice saying something other than violence.

Everyone in my family sings and it's just a natural thing that I haven't thought about too much. There was never a time when I wasn't singing. From the ages of three to five I loved Gloria Estefan and could sing Anything for You pitch-perfect. Mum and dad loved classical music and my grampy used to sing show tunes. Now I like everything from the Manic Street Preachers to Alicia Keys, some classical music if I'm feeling melancholy, and I'm not too fussed on rap although I can deal with 50 Cent. Mainly my musical tastes seem to change with each new boyfriend. I'm so fickle at this age.

It's tough in the Hip Hop industry to continue to create, because the powers that be want a throw away art. They didn't think Rap Music would even last. So instead of trying to get rid of rap music, because everyone benefits from it, they try to get rid of seasoned rappers, at a point in their careers when they finally know the ins and outs of the business aspect of their careers. You see what Prince did when he realized that he didn't own anything, he put slave on his cheek. He came to a point in his career where he was educated enough to be wiser in his choices and realized his true leverage power.

It used to be cool, but if you bad mouth MTV, you sound like a dinosaur, ... The rap is driving me crazy, they all got different jerseys on, more gold than god, beautiful dancers. They all got so much money and then they just flaunt it.

Smithy is pretty well entrenched in origin now, which is a huge rap for a kid his age ? so I'd imagine if he keeps his head on his shoulders and keeps working hard, at some stage, he'll play for his country.

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.

I'm 83 years old. Rock music I understand. Rap music I'm just about to understand. But you guys I will never understand. What were you as kids?

I love Lady Gaga and I love Katy Perry and R&B and rap music... I love big, American pop music.

I'm very much concerned for artists and their safety. It (the killings) definitely rings alarms. ... I wish we could just stop this senseless violence and killing. It kind of gives rap a bad name, and it gives black people a bad name. I would hope he (West) didn't die in vain and that something positive could come of it.

If you rap your knuckles against a window jamb or door, if you brush your leg against a bed or desk, if you catch your foot in a curled-up corner of a rug, or strike a toe against a desk or chair, go back and repeat the sequence. You will find yourself surprised how far off course you were to hit that window jamb, that door, that chair. Get back on course and do it again. How can you pilot a spacecraft if you can't find your way around your own apartment?

In the great tradition of rap records, it's an answer to the list Rolling Stone did in every way,

In the '80s and '90s, I was really interested in, moved by, exhilarated by, and troubled by rap in all the ways a white person from Brookline, Massachusetts should be. That was music that was making trouble, and it was interesting and provocative trouble.

I love rap music. I used to love that rapper from the '60s - Bob Marley.

I'll probably have a lot of rap cats come on up.

I look at rap as an opportunity to act. My head is full of different characters - in each song I'm auditioning a character.

I really love rap music. I grew up in the '80s and '90s with Public Enemy, N.W.A., LL Cool J - I'm a hip-hop encyclopedia. But I got kind of frustrated with the chauvinistic side of rap music, the one that makes it hard to write songs about love and relationships.

Interpretative dances and songs, ranging from rap to jazz to modern, make up the full-length musical, which lasts for an hour and 30 minutes.

In my spare time, my friends and I rap a little bit. I'm good at it, but like, I'm mainly focused on school and wrestling.

I rap about a bad marriage I went through. A lot of people have been through rough times and they can relate.

Can, too. All right, people would be surprised to know I sing, rap ? and like English class. I like to write.

But with rap music - not just N.W.A. - but rap music in general, seeing these artists wearing these team logos all the time started bringing a synergy and energy about having to rep your city, your team, everywhere and all the time.

He [Chris Martin] can't have background music on. It has to be 100 percent of his attention. But if he isn't at home, I turn on the hip-hop. I'm like a bad mutha rapping along to every word as I cook.

Hick-hop is a combination of your traditional country instruments - the fiddle, banjo, the pedal steel guitar - and then I'm running off the mouth on top of all that, ... I just started doing it because I grew up singing to country music and rap and rock, and I combined all my favorite music together and came up with this.

I still wanna rap better than everybody else, and I wanna say important things.

In hip-hop, there's not a lot of love. There's not a lot of love being spread. It's always like 'I'm stuntin' on you raps, or I'm better than you raps.' It's not a lot of 'Yo man, I idolize you raps.'

The music becomes more pure and soulful when it's true, and it has to be true these days with the way the internet works, and the way the game works, everyone wants authentic raps.

Rhyme patterns are nothing without meanings to the words. A lot of rappers can do those flows, but the raps aren't really about anything - which is cool sometimes, but to have the flow and the message is one of my favorite things.

I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I'm conscious of the mainstream without selling out.

In my mind, New York was the place where they had the underground rap shows and I could get in on some ciphers and just rap. This whole fantasy world I had created in my head about New York just from listening to the music my whole life, like, I'ma go up there and do that. But when I came up here, there was none of that, that scene was dead.

You hate it before you played it. I already forgave ya.

They say time is money but really it's not If we ever go broke, then time is all we got And we can't make that back, no you can't make that back

I gotta make a move, I gotta do this now, If they don't know your dreams, they can't shoot 'em down.

In this life ain't no happy endings; Only pure beginnings followed by years of sinning and fake repentance.

I have a very varied taste in music. Everything from rap to classical to Latino to Rat Pack to jazz.

I was a metalhead and then I was into the rap and then I was a metalhead again.

As I do not live in an age when rustling black skirts billow about me, and I do not carry an ebony stick to strike the floor in sharp rebuke, as this is denied me, I rap out a sentence in my note book and feel better. If a grandmother wants to put her foot down, the only safe place to do it these days is in a note book.

I love Lady Gaga and I love Katy Perry and R&B and rap music... I love big, American pop music.

Back in the day, when the D.J. would be playing a record, Id be on the mic trying to hype up the crowd. So once Public Enemy became a rap group, I decided that thats the role that I wanted to take on. I wanted to be the one that was hyping, because Ive always been good at it. I can hype up any crowd.

They claim we're products from the bottom of Hell, But the black is back, and it's bound to sell. Picture us coolin' out on the Fourth of July... And if you heard we were celebratin', that's a worldwide lie.

It was you that chose your due, You built a maze you can't get through. I tried to help you all I can, Now I can't do nuttin' for you, man!

I just consider myself an artist. I dont really rap. I dont really sing. I just do what I feel is good, and people like it.

I hate rap! Can I say that?

The rap on me on the street is the opposite - I'm impractical, I'm more expensive, it's too complicated and I run over budgets, which isn't true. None of that's true and there's plenty of documentation if anybody needs it.

32 grams raw, chop it in half, get 16. Double it times three, we got 48. Which mean a whole lot of cream. Divide the profit by four. Subtract it by eight. We back to 16.

I was 14 years old when I started rapping and I was terrible. I fell in love with it though and when that happens with me I become super passionate and go all the way with it.

Life is good. I've got a apartment that is paid for with rap money. It's good. It's amazing. It's a blessing. I wake up every day and appreciate how much of a blessing this is getting to do this. But it is important to always stay humble, grounded, focused, and maintain that same ambition you had when you had nothing.

When I came out rapping on my record, a lot of people said, Oh, you just want to be like Puff.

Before I was not in the television cameras every 5 minutes, I wasn't as visible, but this year I plan on being more visible to ensure that Virgin Rap Division does not lose. Although I am a very low key person, I am competitive, and with every ounce of my spirit, I will ensure that this label is taken seriously.

I hadn't talked to him in many, many years. He got a bad rap on "Heaven's Gate." I actually live in the hog ranch from "Heaven's Gate" in Montana. Mike [Cimino] gave me that set, the whorehouse, that's my house.

Аfter all the beats and rhymes, I felt like everybody around me was rapping and so I was like.

Rap music is just computerised crap. I listen to Top of the Pops and after three songs I feel like killing someone.

If, after obtaining Buddhahood, anyone in my land gets tossed in jail on a vagrancy rap, may I not attain highest perfect enlightenment.

The government hates rap. That's why they don't arrest anybody that kills rappers! Only the good ones are dead, man! Only the good ones: Biggie dead, Tupac dead, Vanilla Ice still alive! They don't fill out a police report. They don't even have a chalk line when it's a dead rapper, they just take a piss around the body.

If you wanna get away with murder, all you gotta do is shoot somebody in the head and put a demo tape in their pocket! "This is a rap killing. Let's go home!"

The U.S government hates rap music

I'm a rap comedian the same way Bill Cosby is a jazz comedian, Cosby's laid back. I'm like, bang, bang bang, right into it.

Life is like a lunchroom at school. In this industry you've got little individual tables of actors, singers, rap stars, this, that, the other. But it's a big industry that also encompasses anyone in the public eye.

Pop songs are not as graceful as they used to be. Performers today haven’t gone through the regimen of learning how to write. And of course, everyone wants to own copyrights. Rap culture is interesting and different and has purpose, but it has a nonromantic view of life and of social feelings. There may be a void in that.

I value my core fans I got from the hood. I think a lot of things might hit home with them, like problems with the law or how I talk about partying - all the different topics I cover when I do rap. But I also value my suburban fans who take a liking to my music and like the way I change cadences. I appreciate all of them cause both types of fans push me to record all the time, both push me to give my best when I do a show. Both push me to be the best rapper and not just do it as a hobby, but do it as a job and take it seriously and put pride in it.

I stay higher than giraffe pussy

Back in the day, if someone said that hip hop and rap was a fad, that was a joke to me because they just didn't know what they were talking about. In reality, there were so many people who didn't know what they were talking about it.

I have considered rap music stars, and there is one in my new book, Lovers and Players, and there is also a hip-hop music mogul who I think you will like a lot.

People who mock rap and say, "I don't like it" should go and check out Kanye [West] in the studio rapping, or Marshall, Eminem, when he's in the studio. It's a phenomenon. Don't knock it until you've seen it. It may not be your cup of tea, but don't ridicule it.

I sit with my toes in a brook, And if any one axes forwhy? I hits them a rap with my crook, For 'tis sentiment does it, says I.

I do whatever you want man; I got that rap sh--.

I don't only like rap music. There's everything from R&B to crazy gangster rap, hip hop... everything! But it all blends together nicely. It's like a magical music rainbow.

I don't mean to say that as a snide remark toward a certain population in our society, ... But they have a limitation of their attention span, a lot of it probably due to too much rap music going in their ears and coming out their being. So they need to get a focal point that lasts longer than a TV commercial or one short 15-second span.

I don't listen to rap simply because I don't think that relates. That's a rhythmic content, and I can understand that the young people enjoy it.

Before rap came along, I was, actually, actively in the streets; getting in trouble, doing the wrong thing.

Rap is rock 'n' roll. Rock is when you push the buttons in the system; when you say, I'm not going along with what you're saying. That's rock, whether it's done with guitars, or it's done with just beats.

Rapping is a vocal delivery, so you can do it without being part of hip-hop and not knowing what hip-hop is about.

I hate to get on the racial thing because that's something I've always been totally against. But the problem with the media is that they think that the word rock means white and the word rap means black.

What's bad for the culture is wack rappers that get held in high regard like they're some great thing because it's the flavor of the month, but everybody knows they can't rap. I don't think it's hard, even for somebody who's not hip-hop, to know that that's not good. When you put them up against somebody that can really rhyme, you go, "Okay, I get it. This is what it should sound like."

The trick with hip-hop-hip-hop is a sport. The only music that's really, really close to a sport. It starts off, "My DJ's better than yours. I can out-rap you, I can out-dance you, my graffiti piece is better than you." It's very competitive.

I think all music - not just rap - has fallen into this very diluted, delusional state, where everyone's singing about money and having cars, and having all this fun; when really, people are losing their homes.

Everyone who raps isn't hip-hop. To be hip-hop, you've got to know the culture. You got to know the history.

I wouldn't write about sh*t I don't know. You won't hear me write about politics in Africa and stuff, because I don't know enough about it. And I would never rap about something I can't back up.

When I got a chance to rap, I just busted my ass. When I got a chance to act, I busted my ass. Anytime I get a chance. I'm not wasting time. I won't do it if I'm not doing it 110 percent. You've got to work hard if you want to play hard. I like to play, but I know I gotta bust my ass.

I think that a rap aficionado, the hardcore rap fan, will always go away from pop, in the same way a hardcore jazz fan will never think Kenny G is really a jazz artist. You gotta kind of know there's always going to be that purist who's going to be like if it ain't beats and rhymes, if there ain't a DJ, then that ain't Hip Hop.

Rap music came along and saved my life. I started to tell the stories of the streets and that was my way out.

I look at my career and I feel I have the potential to maybe mature into a Samuel Jackson-type older cat, and people will still respect me and say 'Yo, Ice-T was wild', into my old age. And why not? I don't necessarily think I'll be rapping in 10 years.

It's just that when you heard hip-hop, no matter where you were, it was a culture that kind of made you want to try to be part of it. Whether you thought you were an artist, whether you thought you could be a DJ, whether you thought you could breakdance, or whether you thought you could rap. It was the kind of culture that had a lot of open doors.

If you really think back to the culture or just black America before rap music took off, New York could have been Paris.

I think rap music is the sole reason for a lot of black acceptance in pop culture; because the music is very popular, it gets our image out in other ways than in movies.

I'm a menace to society, But girls in biker shorts are so fly to me. After the date, I'mma want to do the wild thing... You're talkin' lobster? I'm thinkin' Burger King.

You the devil in drag. You can burn your cross, Well, I'll burn your flag...

You know it ain't no stoppin' All the doggs I'm droppin' It's Friday night, so everything is poppin.

We come from the days when rap used to agitate the mainstream. Now it's more buddy-buddy. That doesn't sit well with me. So what we need is [a bit more] street politics, bringing up issues, agitating you a little bit. And nothing can agitate you more now than a terrorist threat.

Whatever happened in the neighborhood. That's what I was rapping about. And that sparked people's interest. And that's what kind of put me on that path.

We used to have MTV and all these ways we can show our videos, and it was these rap shows, and it was everything. And then it became not cool to be conscious; it became cool to just hang out. Escapism rap became the norm. And, when I say "escapism rap", I mean getting high, get your cars, get your money, get your jewelry, go to the club, have your women, and it just became all about escaping your reality and not making your reality better on a real tip; not just on the have fun tip.

They thought we were just basically keeping ourselves underground on purpose. And it was just strange for people to approach music that way. And for rap, trying to get recognition, and be seen as a regular form of music like anything else. I mean, the Soul, R&B, Rock 'N Roll, they would dis the hell out of rap when it first came out.

Run DMC brought us out of that underground-only feel. They brought rap above ground and made it respectable as an art form to mainstream music.

Usually people who attack the rap are people who aren't even fans.

I'm not trying to turn into Eddie Murphy, and just do kids movies the rest of my career. I'm going to still do a wide variety of movies, as well as do hardcore rap.

Rapping is talking and communicating, and that's always good.

You ask me, "Did I like Arsenio?" About as much as the Bicentennial.

But with rap music - not just N.W.A. - but rap music in general, seeing these artists wearing these team logos all the time started bringing a synergy and energy about having to rep your city, your team, everywhere and all the time.