Top 133 Quotes & Sayings by Big Daddy Kane
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American rapper Big Daddy Kane.
Last updated on November 4, 2024.
Once you appreciate an art form, you're open to everything.
Shyheim, I took him on the road with me on the Budweiser Superfest. He was like 15 years old, too young to be on a tour sponsored by a beer company.
Me and Rakim were always clear that we were rivals.
Whatever form of hip-hop you like, man, love it and keep it going. Keep it strong. Make sure it stays powerful.
There's so many different styles, but with me I just chose battle rap because I mean, I felt like that was the way to get people to really respect me.
I went to this club in North Carolina and saw Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings perform. Just looking at the demographics of the audience, I thought it was interesting. A few weeks later, I was at the same spot to see Talib Kweli perform. And 60-70 percent of the crowd were the same people.
I hope everybody out here is supporting hip-hop and trying to make it continue on.
I think that a lot of times you have artists that try to deliver a positive message.
People were taking off $5,000 gold chains to wear little $10 leather medallions that represented peace because that's what Public Enemy was about.
If I hadn't gone on the road with Patti LaBelle, then I wouldn't have brought Jay-Z on the road with me. When I saw her leave the stage to change clothes and allow the background singers to keep the show going, I said, 'That's something I wanna do.' So in the middle of my show, I would leave the stage and Jay-Z would come out and rhyme.
When people in the street say, 'You're in my top five,' that means the world to me.
I believe that music is infinite.
What can I say? I like breaking ground and exploring new things.
My view is that I would love to see people united and loving one another, working with one another, supporting one another. I think that's a beautiful vision, so anybody trying to bring that about, I'm all for it. However, I would hate to see people pretending to unite people just for the sake of relocating them.
One of the smartest things I ever did was move to North Carolina.
I was going to different neighborhoods around Brooklyn battling cats back in - this started in '82, so that's like eighth grade. Maybe 13, 14.
I think 'Long Live the Kane' was pretty much a real boxed-in mindset with me just doing what I represented in the hood.
When I came up with KRS-One and Rakim, everybody had to step their lyrical game up to build a fan base.
I just wanted to be the best MC. I wasn't about owning a Bentley. I wanted to be recognized as the illest MC.
If you're White then yes, you have White privilege. It's there for the taking if you choose to use it, you know, just keeping it 100.
I love when big things happen for Brooklyn.
R&B stations don't say 'We have old school artist Ronald Isley in the house.' They say 'We have the legendary Ronald Isley.' But if I come do an interview, they're gonna say 'We have old school rapper Big Daddy Kane in the house.' We belittle ourselves, our music and our culture. It's hard for a lot of legendary artists in hip-hop to overcome.
Me personally, I think that when I take my time with something, it comes out a lot better, because I can really, really get my point across, and if I see that like, this might be a little too deep, I figure out a way to dumb it down so that everybody can understand where I'm going.
You know for some strange reason I like to write the verse first. I mean I know the majority of people do the chorus first and when I think about it, I guess it does make more sense to do the chorus first, but I just like to write the verses first, I don't know why.
The flow that I use, I really developed my rap style in the mid '80s based on Grandmaster Caz from the Cold Crush Brothers, from listening to him. That's like really who I pretty much patterned my style from and I just really took it to another level once I had the opportunity to get out amongst the world myself.
Rap songs don't always have to have a message. They can be done for pure entertainment or just to get a laugh.
I'm used to being respected for what I do, and I've watched as my peers - Doug E. Fresh, MC Lyte - do the same thing and I remember the ones before me - LL, Run-DMC - how it was for them. I think we were able to achieve what we achieved because we watched the generation before us.
Think that I started taking emceeing very serious probably from the very beginning. Because I started as a battle rapper. It was something that I was doing hoping that I could hang with my older cousin.
Premo is one of those producers that I've always had a lot of respect for. I've always thought that he's just extremely talented. More importantly, he's one of those dudes that just sticks to his formula, like if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I wasn't one of those artists where people throw my song and just dance to it. People actually listened to the lyrics.
I think that when it comes to emceeing that there's so many different approaches. You have your party rappers, which pretty much is where it all originated from. With DJ Hollywood, Lovebug Starski, Eddie Cheeba, and all those guys in the '70s. Basic party rap.
When somebody tells me, 'The Source magazine had you in the Top 5 emcees,' I'm like, 'Okay, that's cool.' The other four may not be who I consider dope emcees.
I realized pretty much everything I did wrong with 'Long Live the Kane' and went right back in and did 'It's a Big Daddy Thing,' because now I had a more universal approach.
Now if you call 'Ain't No Half-Steppin' ' or 'Raw' an old-school song, I agree with you. But if you call Big Daddy Kane an old-school artist, I disagree with you.
Actually, I was supposed to battle Rakim back in '89.
To me hip-hop is a culture and I became an MC to be recognized as a dope lyricist. That's what I wanted to be recognized as. So when I'm writing rhymes I always take it very seriously.
I watch a lot of the YouTube battles: Goodz, Loaded Lux, I'm into stuff like that.
I was a Barry White fan.
When hip-hop was new and raw, it was all about being an MC. You wanted to be respected as a lyricist. But as the years passed and hip-hop became big business, hip-hop became like country, rock and pop. And so you now have people who write the songs for rappers.
Production-wise, 'Looks Like a Job For... ' is an incredible album. I think that the weak point of the album was really me.
I'm just glad that people look at me as a legend.
You never hear a country-western station saying 'We have old school artist Willie Nelson in the house.' They say 'We have the legendary Willie Nelson.'
Being acknowledged as one of the best is enough for me.
Shame is something that's man-made.
I don't want people to think that I'm bigger or better than anyone out there.
Yeah, if you go too far, like there's some rappers that use words that just be a little too out there, it makes it where someone doesn't really know what you're talking about and don't really have the time to sit and try to understand.
Eminem is a major star. Em and JAY-Z have achieved things that I have never came close to achieving in my life. They are both major stars in Hip Hop. And to top it off, they are both very lyrical.
Early on I was a fan of Grandmaster Caz of the Cold Crush Brothers. I liked the way that he used a bunch of words to rhyme together in one line. And I picked up sarcasm by watching the older cats at the barbershop. They were just out there talking and saying slick lines to one another. I also got inspiration from Smokey Robinson.
There's rappers out there that don't even know how to rhyme. They take someone else's words and go with it. To each his own.
It's like do White privilege exist? Absolutely. In the case of passing judgment, you have to make sure that you're passing judgement on the right person.
I think that all lives matter, but I think that the reason we say Black Lives Matter is because, for some reason, it seems like there's a lot of people in America that don't realize that we want to be treated as equal as police treat a white person that gets pulled over.
Prince of Darkness?' I don't know what the hell I was doing.
I love hip-hop and I'd love to see it grow.
I think that a lot of battle rappers have a difficult time making songs because they don't know how to do a song format. They're so stuck in that whole battle rap mentality that really all they want to do is just kick rhymes.
I totally understand, believe in, and support Black Lives Matter.
Rakim is a great rapper, but, you know, he's not a battle rapper.
Rakim is a great lyricist. To me, it was always beautiful to be compared to him.
White people moving into Brooklyn, I don't see anything wrong with that. I think that's fine and I think that's beautiful, but to hear about certain black people whose rent is getting hiked up so high and they're not able to get leases renewed. Now that I think is wrong.
Ol' Dirty used to come out to Queens and spend the night at my crib a whole lot.
Raleigh feels like home. It has before I even moved here. During the late '90s I just fell in love with this city.
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