Quotes About Rap

There were some low moments out there on the road tonight—abandonment and what's the point?—but then I pulled in a radio station from Albuquerque playing historical rap and breakdance circa 1982. Kurtis Blow and disco synthesizers made me feel like I could drive all night.

My brother and I always had conversations about me being a rapper. I always used to tell him, 'I'm gonna be the hottest rapper.'

I don't think any rapper can go back. You can be a car salesman, a bank teller - I mean, really good jobs, and people are still gonna look at you and be like, 'You used to rap; what happened?'

Nobody uses skits at all anymore, so it seems like I use a lot. That's how I grew up on tapes. Biggie tapes, Biggie albums would have skits. The Lox would have skits. Mase would have skits. All the dudes I grew up on in Nineties rap would have skits on their projects, just to make you feel like you were right there with them.

There's been lots of theater that uses hip-hop in it, but more often than not, it's used as a joke - isn't it hilarious that these characters are rapping. I treat it as a musical form, and a musical form that allows you to pack in a ton of lyric.

I like to rap about things that are funny but mostly things that are relatable. I remember there was this one song with Ja Rule, and I forgot, exactly, but it was with Ashanti, and there's a line in it that was like, 'She hit me up on AIM.' But that wasn't the actual line; it was something else, but I was like, 'Oh my God, he uses AIM!'

When I first used Auto-Tune, I never used it to sing. I wasn't using it the way T-Pain was. I used it to rap because it makes my voice sound grittier.

A lot of Utah State when I was there, there was a lot of California guys. So, you get a lot of Cali music, you got a lot of dance music, I think the Jerk was popular back then. It was a lot of the music that you can dance to with your teammates. A lot of hip-hop, rap, R&B, it was really fun. It was live in there.

I came up in hip-hop, where people value the ability to tell it straight.

Working with 50 Cent was great, you know what Im saying? It was just great to work with 50 Cent.

While I was rapping I was always involved in youth work - I ran music workshops for teenagers and young offenders all the time and also ran a charity for refugee kids for a time.

As far as the work I did with Timbaland, it was his sound and I just kinda floated in his direction. I just rapped over his traditional beats.

I hate when any rapper would just use "Rapper X" because "Rapper X" is hot at the time and put them on the record. That's not how I do my thing. I work with my friends and people I consider fam.

Something that distinguishes my solo work from normal rap production is that it has a lot of melody - it's not just cutting up a song and having someone rap over it.

When you're trying to bring the streets into rap to prove a point, then you already lost. You separate the two, and that ain't to be played with. You've got people that lost their lives and people that are doing real time. If we gon' make music, let's just make music.

Rap is from the streets and I'm from the streets. That's why a lot of people accept me.

I grew up in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. At the time I was growing up with my father - before it was gentrified - it was a very rough neighborhood. He felt that if I got into or started embracing the rap culture, I would be one step closer to being on the streets.

Mobb Deep is a street-rap group. We from off the streets.

The fact that rap has a strict meter and stays to a click means that you have to make your thoughts concise.

What I really love about the Bay area sound is that it's very unique and that's something I want to strive for, as an artist. It's easy to get caught up in what's trending, but Bay area rap stays true to the local sound.

I struggled with working with producers because no one openly wanted to give me a chance to rap on their beats. That's just honest talk. No one really wanted to take that risk.

I think my genre is more 'reality rap'; I talk about my life and the struggles that I've been through.

2 Chainz and I have a history. It's always an honor and pleasure working with him, because it seems like everything we do is dope. We just have that organic chemistry.

Originally, nobody knew John Cena rapped. It was just something he did in the car. I told Bruce Prichard, and that's how the whole 'Thugonomics' run began.