Quotes About Hip-hop

Reggae was always a passion of mine. I used to say in interviews that I would love to do a reggae album. But it consumed my life being a hip-hop artist and being Heavy D, which I'm happy and proud of.

I know that people everywhere listen to hip-hop, but especially being from the South, you really get that influence. You go out, you party, and it's just always there. Also, I grew up listening and loving reggae music, too.

I listened to a lot of reggae music, a lot of Caribbean, a lot of gospel, a lot of rock, a lot of country, hip-hop... you know, so it just gave me perspective when it came to music and what I liked.

I've been listening to a lot of dance, hip-hop, drum-and-bass, reggae, R&B - very rhythmical music.

I think hip-hop is no more misogynistic than America is as a society. I just think hip-hop is a lot more brash, a lot more bold, a lot more loquacious. There are a lot more words that go into a hip-hop song than go into a regular song.

Randomly enough, all of my favorite rappers growing up were East Coast rappers. I don't know. I just related to them a little more at first - because if you're born in L.A., and you lived there your whole life, Snoop Dogg literally sounds like cars driving by. You feel me? You hear Snoop Dogg so much.

I really love rap music. I grew up in the '80s and '90s with Public Enemy, N.W.A., LL Cool J - I'm a hip-hop encyclopedia. But I got kind of frustrated with the chauvinistic side of rap music, the one that makes it hard to write songs about love and relationships.

My parents were fairly young in the city of Compton. So the things that they played - you know, that was the hip crowd. So I was being exposed to all these ideas, from Big Daddy Kane to Eazy-E to the Bay Area - Too Short, E-40 - you know, back to Marvin Gaye and the Isley Brothers.

I have done big festivals all over Europe with hip hops acts and everything else.

As much as I would like to be the one who saved hip-hop culture, it's pretty much nigh-on impossible.

A lot of the things I do deal with my race, but my race is who I am. I'm an American kid who grew up listening to predominantly hip-hop. I will talk about hip-hop as the music I grew up listening to, and I think sometimes people like to put it as, 'Oh, well, he's talking about black things.' And, yeah, they are, but that's my American identity.

As a kid, my main interest was dancing. When I was 8 years old, I was in a hip-hop troupe.

I think Ye is important to hip-hop.

America used to say that hip-hop was a cancer. Then it embraced that cancer and realized, 'Hey, this isn't a bad thing. It is part of us, just more America.'

Compton got such a legacy in hip-hop.

If you don't know hip-hop, at least a little bit of it, you can't even call yourself an American.

I come from hip-hop - meaning that I don't mind if you come at me. In fact, I prefer it. But I prefer that you come at the show with credible critique.

It's hard being a woman in the hip-hop game, but I'm lucky to have good people around me who have had my back.

I grew up around it. That was what my friends were listening to - some of my closest friends are big hip-hop fans.

My era was '90s Carhartt-and-Timberlands hip-hop. That's my rock n' roll.

I don't care what anybody says, there's nothing like the cultural influence of hip-hop. For me, hip-hop culture is involved in everything - it's in me, in who I am, in how I dress, how I talk. It's in my son and my wife.

Since the '80s, Harlem has the place to go. Before the '80s, just as far as hip-hop go, Harlem has always been a strong point, fashion-wise, music-wise, all of that.

I can't turn hip-hop off, just like I can't turn comic books off. It blends into everything for me.

I didn't want to go out and change anything. I just wanted to make the music that was part of my background, which was rock and blues and hip-hop.