Quotes About Youth

Hip-hop was my first audience - I would rap in the mirror, walk down the street and listen to my Walkman.

I am looking to get into the grime rap U.K. scene.

The day Obama got into office, rap was less important because Obama gave kids an alternative. But will rap ever go away? No. There will always be a need for poets.

I was about nine years old when I first heard Wu-Tang's 'C.R.E.A.M.' Before that, I didn't know anything about rap or hip-hop. I was just into Korean pop.

Before I came out, there was no such thing as a black conciousness movement. Kids on the street didn't know who Malcom X or Martin Luther King was until rap let them know.

What's more American than young people speaking their mind over things they had to create over pots and pans and electronically because music was taken out of schools? What's more American than making something out of nothing? What's more gospel than rap music?

By some estimates, 80% of rap music is bought by white youth. And this makes for another irony. The blooming of white alienation has brought us the first generation of black entrepreneurs with wide-open access to the American mainstream.

Just because someone looks old doesn't mean he or she is. The skin of some people who spend a lot of time outdoors seems to age very rapidly. Someone can look 80 or 90 and only be 40 to 50.

It makes common sense that children, whose brains are rapidly developing, should not be hitting their heads hundreds of times per season.

I feel bad for kids growing up that, like, their favorite rapper is Lil Yachty.

Executives are convinced that a rapper has a certain lifespan as far as being a hot emcee. When you start to approach your 30s, pretty much stereotypically it's over.

I'm not just a rapper. I'm a child educator.

I love being an example, that, hey, I'm young, I'm a rapper, and the gospel is the power of God for salvation even for me.

When I was younger, I was addicted to the idea of becoming a rapper.

I had this dream to be a rapper when I was younger.

Drake and Kanye, y'all gotta move out of the way. I'm younger than y'all. I look better than y'all. I got more swag than y'all. And it just is what it is. I'm here to take it. I'm the new best rapper.

I knew I wanted to be a rapper when I was, like, 5.

As a child, I did not dream of being a rapper.

My mom had wild records, like Luther Vandross, Michael Jackson and the Whispers. But the first record I bought was 'Rapper's Delight.' It had a sky-blue cover with a rainbow. My aunt gave me money to get it, and I played it over and over on the record player.

I actually love the 'rappers look,' with the saggy pants and oversized clothes. It's very deliberate.

I started in '07, and I remember, at that point, nobody was trying to hear from me because I was a young rapper. I'd be saying stuff better than some of what the hottest rappers were saying back then, but nobody was trying to hear from me.

Rappers are definitely role models and definitely should get involved. They're involved in politics whether they like it or not.

I was into hip-hop, growing up early, so I loved Run DMC, LL Cool J, rappers.

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.