People in rock had this idea that rappers aren’t talented. In my opinion we’re better writers, we think deeper, and our concepts are harder – Rap evolves faster than any other genre.
I know I can’t rap forever, but I know as long as I got a label or something I can get money forever.
I hate the bad rap that people give my parents. Because they are just parents, really, at the end of the day trying to stand up for their daughter and themselves.
Everyone’s supposed to stay in their lines and be neat. ‘You’re a rapper. You’re supposed to rap, carry a boom box, wear chains, and go to the club – that’s all you do. What are you doing collecting art? What are you talking about? Wait a minute, you’re getting out of the zone.’ People hate when people cross lines.
Escapist literature gets a bad rap. But I think escape is important for a lot of people in a lot of places.
In rap, as in most popular lyrics, a very low standard is set for rhyme; but this was not always the case with popular music.
Imagine the first time you are about to rap in a studio and you find yourself in a booth with Redman and KRS!
Usually when I make a record, I know what the potential is going to be, but I didn’t know that ‘Just A Friend’ was going to be that big. ‘Just A Friend’ opened a world up where I never knew the difference between being a pop star and a regular rap star. It was crazy.
It’s a joke to think that anyone is one thing. We’re all such complex creatures. But if I’m going to be a poster child for anything, anger’s a gorgeous emotion. It gets a bad rap, but it can make great changes happen.
My name is Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, the former H. Rap Brown. I am a devoted servant of Allah, and an unwavering devotee to His cause. For more than 30 years, I have been tormented and persecuted by my enemies for reasons of race and belief.
OutKast. For them to come back together to rap with me and my brother Krizz Kaliko would be ginormous.
Tales of Tacobella’ showed that I can rap.
I loved writing lyrics for rap when I was in junior high. I loved studying, but somehow I wanted to be a rapper who can write and rap.
I just think that rap takes way more slack than the video games and the movies. We don’t make guns. Smith and Wesson makes guns. Like, white people make guns and bullets, and all we’re doing is rhyming and putting words together.
I always thought I’d look corny in the type of rap video in the club with girls and all that type of stuff. I just didn’t think I could really pull that off. We always think it’s more fun and better just to go outside the box and to use our videos to show cool concepts.
I just want to paint that picture of Chicago that everybody’s missing, and I just want to rap about it.
I think the sound of ‘The Infamous’ came naturally from our lifestyle and some of the criminal things we were doing. We always rap about what we’re living, and to put a beat to lyrics like those is hard.
My dad used to be a rapper, he had a rap group. They did proper old school, boom-bap music. He had a high top and everything.
I’m very proud of what I was able to do during the ’90s, when baggy pants were in and East/West rap was relevant and all these different things.
I had every major label in the world – I mean, any label that dealt with rap music wanted to sign me. I ended up going with Jive Records because I liked everything about ’em.
There’s definitely some parallels between me and Joaquin Phoenix, I think. The line gets so blurry. My rap career wasn’t a hoax, but it was absolutely intended to be a joke. The problem was that I really was on a quest to somehow be a Caucasian Ol’ Dirty Bastard.
Millennials get a bad rap sometimes about their grit and perseverance.
My influences, going back through the history of rap, talk about Doug E. Fresh, Kool Moe D, Eric B. & Rakim, Public Enemy.
‘Chopper City in the Ghetto,’ real talk, it’s what changed Cash Money from a Bounce label to a Rap label.
By denying its musical and artistic merit, hip hop’s critics get to have it both ways: they can deny the legitimate artistic standing of rap while seizing on its pervasive influence as an art form to prove what a terrible effect it has on youth.
Salad can get a bad rap. People think of bland and watery iceberg lettuce, but in fact, salads are an art form, from the simplest rendition to a colorful kitchen-sink approach.
Being from the South, I was really into Southern rap, but I listened to a lot of stuff from all over.
I don’t really like listening to so much rap because I like to have my mind focused on what I’m doing instead of worrying about what everybody else is doing.
The Migos, like anybody I ever been in the studio with, like an influence on my rap. I take this from him and him and him and, you know, put it with myself and make it work like that.
You don’t judge a book by a cover. I’m not your typical rap look.
Yeah, I record on voice memos. I got like 1,000-something memos. If I’m in the middle of something and I can’t get it done, I’ll jot it down, but I never write a rap out, ever.
If I have a rap album I’m dropping, then I want it to be the best rap album.
It’s bad poetry executed by people that can’t sing. That’s my definition of Rap.
I’m at a point where I don’t have to wait for the income from the record to survive, so I’m in a comfortable zone, but I’ll make rap records as long as I feel I have something to rap about.
When I first used Auto-Tune, I never used it to sing. I wasn’t using it the way T-Pain was. I used it to rap because it makes my voice sound grittier.
The music that I listen to on set really varies. When I need lots of energy and I’m dying down towards the day, I need to play hip hop or rap or else my energy just crashes after a long day. When I’m shooting something moody or where I have to play it down a bit, I’ll play Lana Del Rey or something more mellow.
I was just trying to fit into a certain spectrum. Just like, basic rap.
A rap dude has his rap persona, his hyper version of himself. Do you know Method Man’s real name? Or Elton John, Marylin Monroe? You make up this character. That’s kind of what we have done with Die Antwoord, playing with characters.
The mission of ‘8 Mile’ is essentially to garner sympathy for a white rapper involved in an old-school shootout – a rap contest. This may be the final frontier for pop, more unbelievable than the prospect of launching a member of ‘N Sync into orbit.
I just love music. Every genre of music: country, rock. I originally first loved punk rock. Pop punk. I don’t know, just rock in general. And getting to rap. And now K-pop. Different types of music. I love everything.
Let’s be real: dads get a bad rap in the media. We’re talking Vanilla Ice’s ‘Ninja Rap’ bad. More often than not, they’re either pop lockin’ Soul Train-style after learning they aren’t the father, or they’re selfish man-children who have more toys than brain cells.
I hate serious rap. It’s boring.
I think music talks to you on an emotional level, regardless of where you’re from. I guess I related to the tempo of rap, the aggressiveness.
Well I invented horrorcore rap actually. When I did ‘Chuckie’ and when I did ‘Mind of a Lunatic’ – there was nothing like that.
Lil B opened up the floodgates for Odd Future, and now rap has a huge Internet culture.
I was a Southern California boy raised on rap music and cussed like a sailor.
I’m really a singer, so I love songs and I love singing. I like rap music, but I didn’t grow up freestyling.
There’s always a time when you think you’ve done your last song or you’ve written your last rap or, you know, people are not checking for you.
Rap has always had a braggadocios flavour to it. That goes all the way back to ‘Rapper’s Delight.’
I don’t like being categorized as a rapper. I make music; I don’t just rap.
I think that ‘Pinata’ album is going to stand the test of time. It’s going to be a moment in hip-hop, whether people know it or not. It’s nothing else like that in rap. It’s going to forever hold its place.
I don’t even listen to rap. My apartment is too nice to listen to rap in.
My character is meant to know nothing about rap, and not to like it very much, but I know about it, because my kids make me listen to it. There’s some rap I do like very much. I like Eminem, Blackalicious.
My earliest memories of rap music was mixed with my earliest memories of reggae music. They were big sounds around the way, heavy bass lines, strong messages, definitely.
I rap about life in general, particularly my life, unless telling a story.
I kind of backed into rap music. I thought I was going to do comic books or graphic art.
I don’t wear the see-through shirts or anything too glittery. I come from that ’90s school of rap. Fitted caps, because I got a big head, so snapbacks don’t fit me right.
There’s so much that I want to do. I feel like I’m the Magic Johnson of rap. You know, Magic was great on the basketball court, but he’s bigger as a businessman.
