Quotes About Hip-hop

The feeling of the early '90s... I think it was more... It was real. It was gutter. It was more entertaining.

Mac Dre has been around a long time. E-40's been around a long time. JT the Bigga Figga, Rappin 4-Tay. There's been a lot of guys that been around a long time, but they all grew up listening to Too $hort.

Maybe I'm the prophet of hip hop for real. Maybe I do come with some kind of divine principle behind me, because I know that every battle I've ever had I've always won.

I think a number of the leaders are, whether you like it or not, in the hip-hop generation. And when they understand enough, they'll do wonders. I count on them.

'In The Heights' was my favorite show, so hip hop is something that's really close to my heart, but aside from the hip hop, there are so many wondrous things about it.

When I listen to hip-hop, I listen to Just Ice, Boogie Down Productions, Ultramagnetic MCs. I grew up in that age, and it was memorable. But I'm down with all of it. Chuck D or Danny Brown? I feel comfortable with all of them. Word up, kid! Word up, man!

I always felt really alone because no one wanted to talk about the things that I enjoyed, and that was really rap music and hip-hop as a culture. You know, having the shoes, using the words, buying the magazines, seeing the videos. And I had nobody to share it with, so I feel like I lived a lot online.

A lot of underground hip-hop will inspire me as far as rhyme patterns - really wordy, intelligent lyrics.

I look at old performers like James Brown: back in the day when you actually had to work hard to get poppin'. I look at all those types of performers. Even like Kid n' Play and the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff and Salt-N-Pepa. That era where they had to perform. You couldn't just rap. It had to be an entire performance.

It took a long time for hip-hop to become commercial. Now there's all these big black icons that came from nowhere to somewhere. Look at Jay-Z! People stopped being threatened by the music and just started to appreciate that it's good.

My cousin put me on Three 6 Mafia and Playa Fly. My other big cousin put me on 8Ball and MJG.

I was, like, 12 or 13; the first hip hop song I tried to rapping to was Macklemore's 'Thrift Shop,' and my English was so bad, but learning to rap to different songs really helped me with my pronunciation, and looking at the lyrics on Rap Genius and stuff like that.

I love 'Watch the Throne,' because Kanye was acting so ratchet.

My first encounter with Wu-Tang Clan came when I ordered six CDs from those throwback catalog orders, from Columbia House or something, and '36 Chambers' was one of them. It was on from then.

I really like Kendrick Lamar. I'm still a Talib Kweli fan, Lupe Fiasco, Mos Def, Common Sense - people who say things that are relevant to everyday life. I don't pay attention to artists that talk about throwing money away and the car that they drive.

Jay-Z was huge. I was like 2 years old throwing up my diamond, rapping. I know all of 'The Blueprint.' I've heard that album 1,000 times. And 'Reasonable Doubt.'

But I think the image that's thrown out on television is a bad image. Because you see players who want to imitate hip-hop stars. And the NBA is taking advantage of the situation.

Consciousness rap - a term that I don't think exactly exists but gets thrown around a lot - is not exactly popular.

Gonjasufi may sound at first like a rambling hip-hop crackpot, but there's more to the California rapper and singer than mere eccentricity: What appears messy and thrown together is anything but.

Because I am white, I feel like certain opportunities were thrown to me through all of the people from the white community who prey on hip-hop culture.

People like Busta Rhymes would say, 'Clinton Sparks doesn't do mix tapes; he does albums. He just throws albums out on the street.'

I like Future, Young Thug, Mike WiLL, DJ Spinz, Metro Boomin, Drake, Kendrick.

I think Lil Uzi is dope. Future is dope. I love Young Thug. I'm a huge Young Thug fan.

I'm a thug and I rap.