All the rappers my age are getting Audemars and Rolexes. I want to find my own thing. That’s why I travel the world – for me, that’s my B-side, why we go places. I have a Hublot on from time to time but I want a home base watch – something that’s elegant but has got a little pizzazz to it.
I think swag is very important to rappers. It’s the overall appearance and style of an artist – these blue shorts and this blue hat and this $80,000 chain, this jewelry and all these tattoos, that’s swag.
I’ve been around a long time, and when I was at the top of the hill, I was very ahead of my time! Evidence of that is that my music is still current today – you know, rappers sample it all the time. So, rather than compromise my artistic integrity, I concentrated on movies.
Pete Rock, CL Smooth, all this East Coast stuff – that’s kind of, like, the rappers I first admired. I wanna rap just like them because I just thought they were so hard. I thought their delivery was so crazy.
You know who we hear about all the rappers from? The bus drivers.
When I first got into the rap game, I had an early dream of unifying rappers.
Snoop Dogg is hilarious. T.I. is really funny. Who else? 50 Cent is hilarious. Jay-Z is funny. I’ve met him, but he’s funny in interviews. He was funny when I saw him, too. Ludacris is funny. Everybody is. Rappers are funny, a lot of them.
With ‘Hip-Hop Saved My Life,’ I attempted to make ‘Kick, Push,’ but for rappers. To give a real basic play-by-play of the life of a rapper before he makes it – if he ever makes it, because you can get stuck in that and be trying to make it for the rest of your life.
That’s the difference between me and a lot of rappers. So many are unfit, just puffing all the time.
I’m trying to resurrect old school rappers from N.Y.
If we’re evaluating cool to the way other rappers appear to be cool, then I’m not cool at all.
When I was little I definitely listened to a lot of DMX and 50 Cent. Those were probably the two main rappers I was listening to when I was young, but my favorite rapper has always been Lil Wayne.
Guys pit female rappers against each other because female rappers – if you haven’t noticed of late – are a lot more interesting than guys.
I would suggest that teachers show their students concrete examples of the negative effects of the actions that gangsta rappers glorify.
Different rappers got different talents. It’s like X-Men.
How many thick black women are there singing whatever I’m singing, surrounded by rappers, but also from the suburbs? I can’t really judge someone else for judging me!
When I started out rapping, I became very frightened by the idea that people were trying to pigeonhole me. That’s usually what happens to most female rappers. They fit in a box and there’s a prototype or person they’re compared to.
I started in ’07, and I remember, at that point, nobody was trying to hear from me because I was a young rapper. I’d be saying stuff better than some of what the hottest rappers were saying back then, but nobody was trying to hear from me.
Over the years I’ve met quite a few big rappers. Then it exploded with 50 Cent, and I did a book with him. It’s always a strange meeting of two worlds, it’s very exciting.
I would not consider myself to be a quote unquote real New York rapper. I don’t even like New York rappers.
I used to think that there was a certain way I had to stick to when it came to R&B, but now I’m saying whatever, the same way these rappers do. I’m bringing that into R&B music.
A lot of rappers nowadays will say they don’t listen to anybody, but I like to hear what’s going on. I don’t think it affects my music. I still do what I do. I just listen as a fan because I love hip-hop.
It’s so irritating, because male rappers don’t have to have a look. A guy can look like a bum on the street, but as a male, people will accept him because he’s a rapper. But females, they expect you to have a big booty. They expect you to walk in six-inch heels.
One of my favorite rappers of all time, if not my favorite rapper of all time, is Nas.
I don’t have a very positive attitude towards rappers.
A lot of people’s favorite rappers will literally get in the booth and just make sounds.
Rappers aren’t the really rich ones. We all have nice houses with studios and cars, but you need a piece of someone’s business to be super wealthy.
I think rappers spend a lot of time trying to figure out what is new. ‘How can I say this in a way that no one has ever said it before?’
As with all the other rappers I’ve worked with, Biggie and I shared common ground. Even though Biggie grew up in Brooklyn and I grew up in Chicago, we came from the same ‘hood.
The rappers have gone in and created a lot of hit music based upon my influence. And they’ll tell you if you ask.
You can write a great country record and still be angry. Who’s angrier than Toby Keith? He’s angrier than the average 10 rappers.
Rappers should just be able to perform what they create and satisfy the people that like and love them.
I like music, I listened to all rappers; people like Jeezy, Yo Gotti, T.I.
Asking why rappers always talk about their stuff is like asking why Milton is forever listing the attributes of heavenly armies. Because boasting is a formal condition of the epic form. And those taught that they deserve nothing rightly enjoy it when they succeed in terms the culture understands.
I always wanted to be one of the hottest rappers.
I don’t want to do one of those records where it’s like a compilation of a bunch of all sorts of rappers on my beats. I don’t find those to be focused albums.
The best comedians and the best rappers can make you laugh and can make you cry… I believe I’ve been blessed with that gift to make you do just that.
I listen to most South Florida rappers.
I have a personal relationship with Dizzee Rascal – I know him, he’s cool – so this is no disrespect to him or any other British rappers who tried to make it in America, like Wiley and Tinie Tempah, but the type of music they were making to be accepted over there – it doesn’t translate.
A lot of rappers are stars, but people like Drake and Lil Wayne, those are superstars.
There’s a lot of other rappers that aren’t what they claim to be, and they get a pass because they’re black.
I want to see 10 female rappers getting regular rotation. It can’t be all about a man’s opinion.
I like Biggie. Like ‘Pac, he was one of the best rappers in the business. Why would I try to do something to him?
I’m worried about myself. Glizzy gang, that’s it. I’m not worried about no other rappers.
All of the most interesting people had a horrible time as kids. All the best rappers struggled.
I was a rapper who was 13 or 14 years old at one point, and it was a dream. I used to see videos of other rappers around the world, and I used to hope that I could be like that one day.
I’m not saying that hip-hop needs gay rappers or anything, but they need to stop being so close-minded because that will just cause the genre to fail. Look at pop. Pop doesn’t discriminate against people. Look at Lady Gaga, y’know what I mean?
I’ve worked with incredible producers in the past, but when me and El-P got in a room, there was no way I was going to let off his head because not only was he one of the greatest producers I heard, he was one of the illest rappers I had ever heard.
They respect rappers in the U.S., but in England, it’s the Queen’s country. She’ll forever be putting out the message on these BBC networks that there’s no hood: it’s tea and red phoneboxes.
I’m not really interested in rappers who talk about rap. I don’t talk about it, and I don’t like listening to other people talk about it. So I stick to the things that I know. You know, things like cars, ultimate fighting. I have a lot of songs about cars, because they’re a big part of my lifestyle.
I think what sets a New York rapper apart from other rappers from other places is just being from New York.
There’s a lot of rappers out there, a lot of gay girls expressing themselves; I’m not the first to say it; I’m not the first to rap about it. But I’m the one who broke down those doors that everybody has been trying to break down. I did that. I’m the one who went triple platinum first.
To me, hip hop will never be right until female rappers have a stronger voice in it.
Bebop and hip-hop, in so many ways, they’re connected. A lot of rappers remind me so much of bebop guys in terms of improvisation, beats and rhymes. My dream is to see hip-hop incorporated in education. You’ve got the youth of the world in the palm of your hand.
Now, I think you’ll find a lot of rappers and artists are getting girl managers. It just makes sense. The guys in my team have learnt a lot from bringing girls in.
You always hear rappers say they don’t write, but they’re not really talking about anything.
There’s no right or wrong way to do things and I think a lot of the SoundCloud rappers with their DIY music are proving that to be true.
A lot of rappers think they better than me because they saw me broke, going in and out of studios, and couldn’t pay for studio time.
When I made ‘1983,’ there were a bunch of tracks that were in the early drafts that didn’t make it because they just sounded like tracks for rappers, and that’s not really the sound I look for when I produce my own albums.
When you go back and really listen to the legendary rappers, this is timeless music. Guys like Biggie, guys like Pac, timeless music.
