Quotes from Michael Rapaport

I heard Q-Tip on the Jungle Brothers' song 'The Promo.' It was very exciting. It was very new. The music and the culture around hip-hop was evolving. I think there's an emotional quality to their music and there's a vulnerability to the music. For me, A Tribe Called Quest was my Beatles.

I had a boom box, but I didn't go too far with it because I had a really, really big one. It was like the size of a suitcase, and I was just a little kid.

Only a genius can play a fool.

To make independent films, you can't think about them too much, ponder on them too much, get overwhelmed by the enormity of it.

I would love to document the Roots; I think they have an interesting story. I have a curiosity about them. Their musicality and their live performances I think would be great, and I have a feeling that there are stories behind each one of them.

Right now I'm taking a break from hip-hop documentaries. But I would do it if things lined up.

Positive doesn't mean unflawed: It means human and vulnerable. If you make a film and you're portraying the subject with respect, you're gonna do it in an honest way.

I love my kids, and the moments I have with them, and it's kind of weird, it's such an age old cliche, but the way that my sons, the way they make me feel when I look at them, the way they say things, no one else would probably react to them, but it's a special thing for me.

I grew up in New York City in the '80s, and it was the epicenter of hip-hop. There was no Internet. Cable television wasn't as broad. I would listen to the radio, hear cars pass by playing a song, or tape songs off of the radio. At that time, there was such an excitement around hip-hop music.

When I was a kid, my first favorite song was probably Lou Reed's 'Walk on the Wild Side.'

The thing about New York is you can leave your house without a plan and find the day. You can't do that in Los Angeles. You need to get in your car, all this, you can't just drive around like a lunatic. In New York, you can literally walk outside, and wind up anywhere.

When you're playing this bad of a character, it's obviously not reality for someone who's not living that life.

My favorite part is just being able to say and do things that you can't do in real life, and behaving in a way that's just not really acceptable, in the real world.

Being No. 1. It's talked about all of the time in hip-hop. 'I'm still No. 1! I'm the best! I'm the greatest of all time!' It's the same mentality in sports.

A Tribe Called Quest music was so inclusive, so conscious, it brought such a community together.

I'm identified as a New York actor, I sound like I'm from New York, and I couldn't be more proud of it.

I'm always gonna be an actor, so I'm trying to figure out what I'm gonna do next. I would love to make a documentary again someday, but I need to take a break from it.

I love doing things that are titillating. I think race can be very funny, and I think I'm very comfortable discussing it and bringing it up.

But it all came, and for me, hip-hop has done more for racial divide and racial sort of bringing together than anything in the last 30 years. Seeing people like Eminem sounding like somebody like Jay-Z and just the racial aspects of it all.

So to compare the Beatles, obviously the Beatles are the Beatles, but in hip-hop terms, Tribe is the Beatles. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five are the Beatles. Big Daddy Kane is Jimi Hendrix. It means that much to people that grew up with it.

Like any family, like any group - the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, EPMD, Public Enemy - they've had bumps in the road. I just think that because A Tribe Called Quest is so precious to fans, they were concerned about unveiling some of those things.

Call it stubborn, call it ignorant, call it what you want, but I don't think I have to join a particular faith or culture or creed or religion just to fit in.

To be able to play somebody that says and does pretty much whatever he wants is great.

The effect hip-hop had on me was enormous. I was exposed to it by happenstance. My father worked at a radio station in New York called WKTU Disco 92. It was the first radio station in New York City to play disco in the late '70s.