Quotes About Hip-hop

As a New Yorker you can't help but be proud of the fact that so much music and culture started here. Punk rock, jazz, hip-hop and house music started here, George Gershwin debuted 'Rhapsody in Blue' here; the Velvet Underground are from New York.

My goal the whole time has been for people to see me as a stand-alone artist. I came out with Young Money, the biggest hip-hop label in the world at the time. And then it was, 'How do I branch away from Lil Wayne?'

Sneakers are a new era. Anyone can feel new with a new pair of shoes. They make you feel contemporary. It's fun because I'm not a young designer, and it opens my brain. Hip-hop isn't just for the U.S. Everyone loves it.

From a very young age, as a teenager, I was into hip-hop and skateboarding and all those things that were akin to a kid in the '90s. All those things are what resulted in clothes.

My dad loved music, and he passed that on to me. I fell in love with hip-hop the first time I heard it. I started writing raps at a young age. I wasn't a Christian at that point. I thought I was, but I don't think I was, looking back on it.

I liked rap from a young age, from listening to MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice.

I like underground rappers - Cory Gunz is a young kid that's been really doing his thing. I'm a Gym Class Heroes type of fan even though they're not new, but they're definitely trendsetters.

I'll tell a young kid in a minute, 'If you don't know how to read, then what good is trying to be an MC?' Like, you can MC, but if you're not trying to be a better person, learn and apply that to your MCing, then how far do you think you're really going to go?

I listen to Jay-Z, Nelly, Nas, Ludacris and all the young kids out there. I listen to them, and I have mad respect for them.

Luther Campbell is the only person that has ever paid me for sampling me. I'm out for the rest of 'em, but the young man paid me.

When I think of trap, I think of something that is unrehearsed. It's something that's edgy, not too well put together.

I describe my sound as sugar trap, that's not really a description that's really who I am, that's my swag, that's how I talk and walk.

We grew up listening to music like that: we grew up on the snap music, grew up off the trap music, grew up on all the South sound.

I come from hip hop for sure, and there are basic elements of that, but then I'll take from somewhere else, like samba, and do it with trap drums. I like going places other people haven't gone before.

I think that the sound that the world knows as trap music is the sound that Gucci and I created.

Trap music, to me, is hustling music.

There's a heavy hip-hop influence in my music, some trap influence, but it's always lyrical.

When Nas and AZ send you a track, you know it is serious business. Same with Styles P and Jadakiss - then it is serious business. But when you get a trap music track, you know it's time to dumb it down.

I could never say Rza's trash. But he didn't come with the right formula on '8 Diagrams.' I think 'Cuban Linx 2' will have the Clan back where they need to be, but then it's up for the Clan to be back where they need to be, too. 'Cos it ain't just the album, you know what I mean? It's everything.

I've been living. I've been doing the writing thing. I've been being the family man. I've been traveling the world. I been to, like, 18 cities last year. I've been getting my thoughts together, trying to figure out what's going on with hip-hop itself.

Pitbull is great with brands. Endorsements with hip-hop artists work because hip-hop artists typically set the most trends... It's every brand's goal to be seen in the mainstream, and hip-hop music has become mainstream music.

Years ago, I wanted to be like the girl Ne-Yo. You know, with the mid-tempo ballads - I come from the Babyface era. But that's not trendy; that's not hip-hop.

The trials my father went through were things most young black males have to go through. There was nothing he shielded from me, because it doesn't matter how you grow up, those who oppress will oppress. It's all completely relatable; everyone feels NWA.

I appreciate people who make hip-hop... the way A Tribe Called Quest and Lauryn Hill and KRS-One did it.