Top 50 Rakim Quotes

Social media gives a lot of people a platform where they can express their feelings. I like to do mine through songs. I let info build up. In some way, it translates into paper whenever I sit down.

Playing the sax and then enjoying jazz music, man – it’s like I learned how to find words inside of the beat.

I’m more of a wordsmith, so I like taking different words and trying to see what I can do with them – as many things as possible.

I love, you know, a lot of jazz, John Coltrane.

When you’re dealing with a bunch of different producers, you gotta make sure the chemistry fits.

Maybe I’m too sensitive to the struggle, but I think a lot of people that listen to music are trying to escape.

My thing is, you have to let young artists be young artists.

I was always a laid-back, subdued person, and I just try to let that speak through my music.

Sometimes I write from the end of the verse to the beginning of the verse.

My aunt Ruth Brown was a jazz musician. I got hooked on it at a young age, understanding what John Coltrane was doing playing two notes on the saxophone at the same time, which is impossible.

I had a lot of respect for Prodigy. He brought the hood to the booth. When we were trying to shape this rap thing into something, he was one of the cats I respected for bringing the hood into the booth.

We need the media to know that some of us are really passionate about music.

I don’t believe in writer’s block. I’ll get stuck, but being stuck, I’ll still write a verse. If you know where you’re going, you can always start from there and work your way back.

In New York, they kind of rode with me from day one: they understand who I am.

I’m not a mainstream artist. But I’ve seen my kids being born; I’ve seen them take their first steps, I’ve seen them grow up and start school. That’s worth more to me than any umpteen million dollars.

My kids listen to rap, so I try to keep up with as much as I can.

I try to support my kids in what they do and, at the same time, not push them towards anything.

I’m a fan of Jay-Z, from the negotiating table to the booth.

I can’t look at TV without seeing something that’s been influenced by rap. Even commercials for cereal. When I was small, I was a fan of cartoon characters – now the cartoon characters are rapping!

Every generation wants that real hip-hop. And I’ve always been able to bring that.

I always went left to what everybody else was doing. I’m used to going against the grain.

I’ve always tried to insert consciousness and spirituality in my records, interpreting the writings of all cultures and religions and how they apply to life in modern times.

When I broke up with Eric B., I went on a little hiatus. Then all I was trying do is find producers. It’s real hard, man.

I was heavily influenced by Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Caz, but I kind of wanted to take it somewhere else.

Lil Wayne is doing his thing, and so is Drake.

I try to make my flow sound like a John Coltrane solo.

One of the main reasons why it didn’t work out for me and Aftermath is because I felt my music should sound one way, and they felt it should sound another. But, I learned a lot from watching Dre, and when I left California, I knew it was time for me to get my own label.

To me, sometimes things outside of rap inspire me to rap.

Maino is an artist that I feel walks what he talks – you can tell what he raps about and what he’s been through is very similar. You’ve got a lot of rappers that rap about what they’ve heard or seen, but I think Maino is one of the rappers that has actually lived it.

I try to stay true to my style, and I understand the foundation of my style and where it came from. But at the same time, you take that experience and learn different ways to write, different ways to turn on that creative energy.

I know how to read music, watching my mom and listening to Mom play music.

When I started rhyming, my favorite rhythms were from John Coltrane and some of the things he did on sax. And certain rhythms that I hear on drums, I try to emulate with my words, dropping on the same patterns that them beats or them notes would hit.

We gotta let hip-hop grow. We gotta let it go through its different phases throughout the different places that’s accepting it.

I stick to my guns – that’s what keeps me going as an artist. Stevie Wonder never changed from what he wanted to do, and each new album that came along was dope.

We need a few more Kanyes, people that’s really passionate about hip-hop and who keep it alive.

I had nothing but respect for Pac.

Everything I did on the ‘Paid in Full’ album and those first three albums, I wrote everything right in the studio.

I love Kanye for that. Being a producer, making beats, and being a rapper. He does it all.

It’s hard to have fun and make a fun album when you know that it’s something that you need to say.

I was an athlete in college – a quarterback, a leader – so people telling me what to do doesn’t work.

You come up, you love music, and then business interferes.

The young kids out there doing their thing, I can’t knock them.

Without no disrespect to any artist, there’s a lot of degrading music out there as far as degrading the culture and degrading society as well. That’s individuals that choose to make that kind of music.

Jada, Styles P, the LOX, period. You throw on one of their joints… I’m in the whip; I try to keep my cool in the whip. I don’t like bouncing around, getting my crazy on, but it’s certain joints you gotta wild out. Roll the window down, blast the joints, let it be heard. That’s one of them groups that bang it out.

I got a lot of vinyl, a lot of music in general in the house.

Hip-hop has taken a lot of different routes throughout the years, man. I’ve been around since 1986.

I started studying in ’85 and got knowledge of self and started spitting. What was going on was taking the understanding of what I was reading and applying it with my life and applying it with my rhymes.

I’m very smart with my paper! I stopped buying things for myself a long time ago – now I just buy things for my kids or my wife.

My thing was, I loved music. I played music: I played the saxophone. So the little bit of music knowhow I had, I tried to implement that in every thing I did, from my style, my cadence, the way I tried to pause and stagnate it; that all came from John Coltrane and listening to jazz albums. Trying to rhyme like a jazz player.

I love Jay-Z, I love Kanye, and I praise the way he’s been able to bring more business out of the jungle.