Quotes About Artistry

Eventually, I started to actually enjoy rapping.

In high school I was making beats for my friends and for myself and rapping over them.

Rapping and singing are not two polar opposites. There's so much middle ground. And I think there's a lot of people who find that middle ground.

If you tell somebody that you make music they're all interested. But when you say you rap, they just start rolling their eyes at you. It would've taken me a lot longer to get my foot in the door if I'd continued rapping all the way.

I try to make music, all kinds of music, whether it be singing or rapping.

If I wasn't rapping about politics, then I might have been just another person trying to sell albums, and I might have sounded like everyone else out there.

From the beginning with 'So Far Gone,' Drake's work has been to find a way to deftly balance his singing and his rapping.

I was a rapper. The reason I stopped rapping was because I realized that people wanted guys like Puff Daddy. That's not what I do. I quit. That was it. I had to sacrifice for my choice. I said, 'Forget it. I'll be a producer.' Nobody was going to make me do anything.

When I was 11, I decided to start rapping, playing guitar, and writing songs. Everything really blossomed from there.

I grew up listening to T-Pain and The-Dream, and they were doing that thing, rapping and singing at the same time. That's where I get it from.

When I was just straight-up rapping, I feel like everyone wasn't paying attention as much, but the moment I started singing - case in point, 'Clout Cobain' - it affected more people.

I know a beat is good for me when I can just start rapping. It's usually hard for me to do that.

Once I started rapping, I had to start dancing more. I had to really use my craft, and take everything I did for fun and put it into my professional shows.

I'm not, like, 'comedy rapping.'

I was just rapping as a pastime and I became good at it. So much so that by the time my Def Jam contract was in front of me, I didn't have a rap name.

I'm a bred musician - this is generational. For me to just limit myself to rapping is a discredit to my bloodline.

I don't think anybody is a poet 24/7, only in those rare moments when a person is producing a poem.

It is rare that even a jazz musician finds an individual voice.

When I play, I'm so in the moment that I can't really remember what happened afterwards. It's a rare experience for a thinking person like me.

What Beats brings to Apple are guys with very rare skills. People like this aren't born every day. They're very rare. They really get music deeply.

It's very rare that you get very old jazz lovers and super-young hip-hop lovers at the same exact show, when you think about it. Not many artists can do that.

When I take from my influences, it's rare that I do it literally.

I have rarely seen the face of a mechanic in the action of creation which was not fine, never one which was not earnest and impressive.

I rarely get starstruck, but I've been a Jay-Z fan since fourth grade and had a huge crush on Beyonce in high school. I respect their artistry, and now I've joined Roc Nation - it's even more crazy.