Quotes from Cordae

Nahmir got smash hits.

Just trust your intuition and beware of outsiders.

I'm very protective of my energy. You have to protect your energy around outside sources because your positive energy can be canceled out by someone's dark energy.

I can rippity rap, lyrical miracle all day, but if you don't have a message behind it and you not saying nothing, it doesn't make sense.

Competition is the best form of motivation.

There are a lot of dope people in the DMV: WillThaRapper, Big Flock, GoldLink, Logic, IDK, Rico Nasty, Goonew and Q Da Fool. Seeing them get national attention motivated me to do my thing.

At a festival, the people there are not all your fans, and this gives me a chance to win over new people. I look at it as a challenge.

Just stay true to myself. That's not even my goal. That's what you always have to do, 'cause at the end of the day when the cameras are off and you put your phone down, you got to live with yourself, be comfortable and sleep at night with the decisions you've made so I'm just always myself unapologetically.

I want my music to make you reminiscent or nostalgic of your childhood, or take you back to a better place.

Nas' storytelling was just fire.

When I used to work at Friday's, in a restaurant, that endless appetizer, that was my worst enemy as a server. Oh my god.

Words are powerful. The tongue is powerful. And when you write it down, and record it, and press it up, it's 100 million times more powerful. It's important to utilize our tongue to help people.

Hopefully, somebody who's hearing my music, it's relatable to them, and it strikes a cord with them.

If you think about it, hip-hop came out of nothing. It was a response to oppression.

I'm an introvert, but I disguise my introversion by being an extrovert. If I don't have to be around people, I'm not. If I'm around people, I'm gonna do my thing. But I'm not really with the fake kickin' it - everything's organic, everything's natural.

For a lot of artists in the entertainment industry, we can't become too jaded with what's going on with our personal lives and still not be connected with our people.

In YBN, we all have our own lanes. We're not necessarily a group. We're more of a collective - it's like a movement. It's like a brotherhood outside of music and everything has been organic.

I set my own goals higher than what anybody else has set for me.

I don't even really try to do something different. I just do what's authentic to me.

Washington D.C. and the entire DMV area are very dope places because they're such musically-inclined areas.

I went to seven different elementary schools.

XXL is the embodiment of hip-hop... Eminem even shouted it out in a song.

I put XXL Freshman on my vision board.

Puma just, they really rock with me the long way. They've been rockin with me for a while.