Quotes from MC Ren

Street raps have to be masculine.

America was built on segregation. It's gonna stay segregated until everyone's equal, and that ain't gonna happen when it's a capitalistic society.

Don't take everything so seriously.

When E started Ruthless, we didn't have to listen to anybody tellin' us what we had to do. That's why the music was so powerful, 'cause we didn't have no barriers.

My house is filled with boxes of books.

When you're riding around with the fellas, you want to listen to something real masculine, like 'Boyz-in-the-Hood.' How would it look riding around and listening to something wimpy like 'I Need Love' or that phony stuff Jazzy Jeff does?

Anybody can curse on a record.

Snoop is West Coast. He represents that to the fullest.

I'm practically a historian.

I would listen to the other great MCs and work on my delivery all the time.

That was my thing - the Raiders hats and all that.

I got into rap when I first heard Sugarhill Gang.

I want to say, to Mr. Gene Simmons, hip-hop is here forever. Get used to it.

I didn't even go to college. I wish I did.

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.

If you're a black kid from the streets and somebody is rapping about parents not understanding, you'd laugh at that.

I was rapping at school, at talent shows. I thought I was a little star.

Little kid see a cartoon character with a gun, he going to want to carry a gun, right?

Rock and roll is not an instrument. Rock and roll isn't even a style of music. Rock and roll is a spirit that's been going since the blues, jazz, bebop, soul, R&B, heavy metal, punk rock and, yes, hip-hop.

I never messed around with gangs.

I don't think I'll be playing the Mirage or the Tropicana when I'm 40.

I was listening to Chuck D, KRS, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, all the greats, studying them.

Ruthless Villain' was supposed to be E's song. But it was too fast for him, so when I rapped it, they was like, 'Man, you might as well just get in the group.'