I got into rap because I can’t sing. If I could sing, I’d be a singer.
I can rap, play ball, design T-shirts, all that.
Some songs I rap before the beat even play and I enjoy doing that. I like walking the beat down.
When I was in fourth grade, I started writing a lot of poetry, and eventually, someone in the church was like, ‘You should switch this over to rapping.’ I went home and did that – started putting my poems over rap.
Rap has so many possibilities that need to be explored. There are different factions of rap, but some are in a rut. Rap doesn’t have to be about boosting egos and grabbing your crotch and dissing women. There’s a way to make political and social issues interesting and entertaining to the young rap audience.
Snoop Dogg has had me to Hollywood to rap with him on his records, and the 2 Live Crew brought me to Miami and wined and dined me to make a record with them.
When you’ve been raised in care, rap music isn’t just about guns and sexism. They’re talking about real things you can hang on to, problems of identity that you have sympathy with. It’s not just about the music, with rap: when I was in care, it meant a whole lot more than that.
I remember going to pre-school, you know, rolling out in the Suburban and my dad bumping all types of rap, so he introduced me to it and from there I just loved it ever since.
The industry is starting to be more open to what we do. I just don’t want us to be boxed in whatever people assume Christian rap should be. We’re dudes who love hip hop, and we love Jesus, and that’s going to be apparent in our music.
My goal for the rap game is just to make a lot of really dope music. That’s really where I keep my mindset at: Just being obsessed over making something crazy and new every day.
I really didn’t want to rap; I was just a regular kid. My friend – his name is William Aston – we went to the same high school together, and he was rapping. He put out a freestyle over Chris Brown’s ‘Look at Me Now,’ and it was fire, and the whole school went crazy.
Gunna ain’t never wrote no song for me. He just showed me how to rap.
I liked rap from a young age, from listening to MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice.
I think it’s a mistake where rap music is these days. It doesn’t seem to be able to look out of the ghetto and that’s ultimately unfortunate, because it defines our limitations.
I write poetry, and I put it to a beat – I mean, that’s what they call rap.
People are taking a second look at Compton or rethinking what they believed to be true. Even the rap stars who helped established Compton’s reputation worldwide are older now, and even their images have evolved.
I really don’t think I have a genre, honestly, ’cause I make such different music even though it is rap.
I’ve never been against women. That anti-feminist rap is bogus. I think men should be nice to women, buy them diamonds.
There were people who had sampled my voice from speeches when I was an Islamist and made them the chorus of pro-Islamist rap songs who then began talking about me as an apostate.
I went to jail at 17. While I was there, I discovered that I could write. Once I started making some songs, other inmates wanted to know a little bit more about what I was doing, and they asked me to rap for them. They really liked it, and I made it a goal to come out and try to make something out of the music.
Where I go, rap goes. Rap is like my dog; it’s like my little pet. And where I go, I lead my little pet with me.
I’ve probably wanted to be a rapper since I was a teenager. I was an actor and comedian and stuff, but I always wanted to rap, it was another outlet.
When rap music needed to have a teacher, I became it.
If I didn’t have a girlfriend, I’d have 10 girls at the studio, and they would make me not rap.
With me having this raspy voice, people always asked when I was going to sing on a song. When I was going at it with 50, people were saying I don’t sing on my own hooks. That always stuck in my head and people always told me I had to use my own voice not just to rap.
When I drive to work, I listen to thuggish rap at a very loud volume, even though the lyrics are degrading to women and offend me to my core. I am mortified by my music choices.
Rap, for me, I go at any tempo and any sound of beat and incorporate melody as well.
It’s a funny thing about rap, that when you say ‘I’ into the microphone, it’s like a public confession. It’s very strange.
I listen to a lot of music, and I listen to some rap, and I do like listening to Biggie Smalls.
There are so many double standards, not just in rap, but everywhere.
I think the problem with people, as they start to mature, they say, ‘Rap is a young man’s game,’ and they keep trying to make young songs. But you don’t know the slang – it changes every day, and you’re just visiting. So you’re trying to be something you’re not, and the audience doesn’t buy into that.
I don’t know rap. I can’t tell you a Tupac song. But you put on some go-go, and I’ll know it word-for-word. That’s why I feel like I got my own sound – or a D.C. sound.
Lil Boat 2′ people liked, but it was all rap. Some thought it was too much.
I always wanted the flowiness that hip-hop artists had. I always admired how they rapped so fast, but I never wanted to rap; I wanted to sing the rap.
I am not a rapper. And I believe people in India are not even clear with the whole idea of rap or what it signifies.
I don’t like calling it Christian rap. Titles are so limiting. It’s hip-hop. I’m a rapper.
I love rap, and part of hip-hop culture is being excessive and absurd, and I can’t be excessive and absurd without sounding corny. So I have to do it in a very truthful, weird way.
Everybody was down on me saying I can’t rap, so I wanted to show everybody that I could actually do this. That’s what motivated me.
I feel like this: When you call me in to do something with you, you must want me to do soul-singing. Because you know I’m a soul singer. Don’t ask me to come in and rap. And don’t ask me to come in and sing pop.
It’s funny: I’ve seen a lot of the rock attitude come into play in the rap world, where it’s like they’re angry, or there’s this defiance going on, and there’s a lot of danger, and it’s actually really encouraging; they’re opening the door for us to kind of move on in again.
A lot of times black folks look for love in all the wrong places. You’re always looking for somebody to love you, be accepted, and there’s the insecurities that are even transmitted through rap. Everyone is trying to aim to please too much.
It seems like music gets put in this hub where you have to rap about this, and the minute you do something else, it’s like you changing. Nah, I’m being creative.
Reality does get a bad rap. But I’m not concerned about it ’cause I know who I am. They can edit it, but you are in charge of what you do.
I tried gimmicky stuff ’cause I wanted to get some attention, and remember, you know, in the rap world Seattle was a cave. There was no light.
I think rap in the street when they have rap competitions is thrilling because these kids are making it up and having a go at each other. They’ve got something to say. This is about getting their frustrations out.
Ever since I was a little kid, I would always rap. I just loved it. But when I really got into it seriously was when I saw ‘Kill Bill.’
My problem is I’m not talented enough to do everything, but I want to do everything. I’m like, ‘Oh God, I wish I could dance! Oh God, I wish I could rap!’ I can’t be a rapper, and I’m sure as hell not going to be able to dance for a living, but I want to do it all, you know?
If you stay in one place, you can only rap about one thing because that’s all you know.
I have a song that’s called ‘Rap Dreams, Hoop Dreams’. Besides education, everybody’s got hoop dreams from day one in rap. Rap, sports, music have so much of an impact on the world.
At least the rap metal stuff is good, but it’s not really my bag. I’ve been listening to the radio since we’ve been touring the past month, because we don’t get it most of the time.
I might rap about a lot of stuff, but that’s just a reflection about what I’ve been through. But in real life, everything I do is positive.
I think being Shaquille O’Neal would be the most amazing thing. There’s nothing I would have done differently in his life. Everything he’s done I think is pretty spot on, even, like, the bad rap videos, the shoes, the movies, everything.
The cats that are doing they thing, you have to search to really find them, to find rappers that can actually rap and speak messages in the music. That’s not a good thing at all.
I had this little rap group, and we were called ‘2 Too Many’… We used to hang out in front of Jazzy Jeff’s record studio every day.
I grew up in the ’90s. My goal isn’t to be a ’90s rapper, but I have little hints of ’90s influence in my music. It’s a modern approach to classic rap.
Growing up people would tell me: ‘Yo, you only can do one thing. If you’re going to rap, just rap. If you’re going to sing, just sing.’ It boxed me in. But I just figured out a way to show everything. It’s like if you have a job interview, you want to present as many skills as you have.
I don’t really want to rap about money.
As I was sitting there, the deejay was playing music and talking over the music, and the kids were going crazy. All of a sudden, something said to me, ‘Put something like that on a record, and it will be the biggest thing.’ I didn’t even know you called it rap.
