Quotes About Rap

My day one fans - my fans from my mix tape days - know my life now. They know where I've been. You don't want to have a disconnection with those fans. You have to give them all of you because they feel like they've known you.

My first tape was 'Hey, I can do what y'all do.' It's new, flashy, and not through rap. It was a guy singing how cool he was. I'm here with big bro Drake; I'm his little gunner.

I had one of those tape players with a strap on it and the orange button - the old-school recorder - and I'd record songs by Roxanne Shante, Run-D.M.C. and Biz, Markie. I'd try and learn the words. I've been rhyming since I was a young fella. I used to win talent shows by break dancing and rapping.

I had a happy childhood in the suburbs of L.A. My parents instilled in us an appreciation of history, art and, most important, Motown. Jarron and I weren't allowed to listen to rap until we were 12. After our birthday I dashed to Target and bought DJ Quik's album 'Quik Is the Name.' I memorized every line.

I freestyled the hook to 'Target.' I got into cadence and then it sparked the idea.

My music is airy; it's spacious. It requires you to be able to rap and articulate your message over it. That's what the beat demands of you. Not a lot of people try to rap over my beats because it's a bit of a task.

I taught Drake everything he knows.

People can look to me as a teacher, but I consider myself a student of hip-hop.

I would suggest that teachers show their students concrete examples of the negative effects of the actions that gangsta rappers glorify.

There was a point in time, when I put out the Chief Keef diss, where I was so hot that everybody was calling my phone. But I decided to go set up under Wale, but he wasn't really teaching me how to rap.

For a long time I heard rap without paying attention, but it is still a way of life, even when you're a kid.

I thought you looked like a guy who liked to enjoy hisself," Eazy told me later. "You were the first white guy I ever really talked to who wasn't trying to collect rent or arrest me.

SOAPY You know, feisty women never get boring. JOEL Let me tell you something. Boring women get a bad rap. There's a lot to be said for boring women.

While also, importantly, not wanting to dumb it down or pretend the days of 'difficult' poetry are over, because we live in a pluralist culture and there's room for 'difficult' poetry alongside rap and everything else. And poetry won't be for everyone, but everyone should have the choice.

Being a rapper as a woman is not a good thing in Afghanistan. I kind of put my life in danger whenever I go somewhere to talk about women's rights or make music, rap, or have interviews.

I feel like this - everybody, every rapper to me, I feel like every rapper got a little bit of E-40 in them, whether they know it or not.

I was straight listening to rap at 15: LL Cool J, the Skinny Boys, Whistle, UTFO. And Run-D.M.C.'s debut was at the top of my list.

The first rap I recorded was on Jeezy's 'White Girl' beat. One of my partners invited me to his studio, so I go. I wasn't planning on recording, we were just messing around. And I started recording a song, just a freestyle. Back then, Jeezy was going so hard, that's what everyone was on. That's what me and my partners in the trap would listen to.

If I was a white rapper, the bar for me would be Eminem. Of course his white skin helped him excel to heights that a lot of other rappers couldn't, but he still was talented. People gravitated towards him because of his skills. He stood the test of time.

I just think that rap takes way more slack than the video games and the movies. We don't make guns. Smith and Wesson makes guns. Like, white people make guns and bullets, and all we're doing is rhyming and putting words together.

I work with any producer that brings me a hot beat, but you don't always know if it's a sample.

I really didn't even pick producers. I just picked beats, except for Dre - he's the only producer I knew I wanted to work with.

When I work with Lil Jon, as soon as I come in the studio, he already knows what we're gonna do. He's one of those producers where when you know you've got a session booked with them, you're job is easier because they're probably already going to have an idea or a hook.

The race factor was just a minuscule part of what I was doing with Eminem. It was really about the music and how well we worked together.