Top 67 Quotes & Sayings by Dave East
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Dave East.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
After the first three or four years of me taking rap seriously, it started to look more promising. I started booking shows and more people were playing my music, so I starting believing this could actually work for me.
I want to be one of the greats. I feel like the money and all that is going to come, but I want to be a name that, like, when you say Nas or Jay Z, that's forever.
I am not going to lie - my looks helped me.
I stand out. I don't really think I fit in with the 'what rap is' today. I feel like I stand out because I'm talking about me and my homies and stories from my life. I ain't really trying to have you turnt up all day.
Spanish Harlem is like every ghetto in America. There's every distraction possible. To make it up out of there is really a task itself.
My journey is self-made because I came from nothing. It's the best feeling now, because I don't really feel like I owe anybody.
I'll never give up my style.
The fashion and the rap go hand in hand with New York City.
I watch movies all day. I am a heavy movie head.
I feel like rap fit me better. I could hoop. I could have went and did that, but this is my lifestyle, my temperament, my mentality.
I always tell people, I never get writer's block because it's coming straight from my brain, like, real-life experiences. I'm like the news. I'm just reporting it for myself.
The Netflix thing with Nas is more of a documentary, where we kind of... talk. We go to my neighborhood. You get to see where I'm from and all that. And then, I'm in the studio with Nas.
I'm not feeling R. Kelly. And I got a daughter, so I'm super not jacking R. Kelly at all.
My standout moment I would have to say was when 'Black Rose' dropped and getting the co-sign from Nas and The LOX. I would say all those moments together were crazy for me.
I always had a gift with writing. I can really write. I always felt like I can write movies or somehow get into that.
My father brought a basketball to the hospital when I was born, and he already had it embedded in his head that I would be a ball player.
You always hear rappers say they don't write, but they're not really talking about anything.
When I go back to my hood, Queens, Brooklyn, or here in L.A., the people that's not famous, that's what inspires me.
I was with Mass Appeal solely for almost two years.
I got it tatted on me, 'born broke, die rich.'
Honestly, I want to make more music for the women. I rather have a show full of girls, but I still gotta talk about what I be personally going through, what I've gone through, and what the homies go through.
People don't get signed by Def Jam every day on my block.
A big part of what kept me focused on the music was already failing with basketball. I played basketball all of my life. When basketball didn't work, I knew that I had to make it in whatever I decided to do next.
Islam really brought a discipline to my life that I didn't really have before. My old mindset was if they ain't helping me, I ain't helping them, but you can't live life that way.
No matter how dope you are, if you ain't really built, if you ain't put that groundwork in, you gonna flop. Nobody gonna fill those arenas.
A lot of people change for good. Some people just fall off. Just trying to progress in anything, no matter what you're doing, I feel like any progression you make... some people aren't gonna be around you that were around you.
You can't turn fame off regardless if you're a platinum-selling artist or you're in jail every week. If you're famous, you're famous. You're in the headlines either way you go.
I'm never really trying to focus on one aim.
I never felt like 'I'm an underground dude' or 'I can only be hot in New York.'
I feel like a lyricist is somebody that writes their own lyrics. Now songwriters and lyricists are two totally different things. You can't really be a lyricist if you didn't write your lyrics. There's no passion, there's nothing in it coming from you. It's somebody else's feelings and you just taking it and running with it.
I always wanted to do something I knew I could love to wake up and do every day, and rap was just second nature to me, growing up in Harlem. I never really had to try.
I just value my family's opinion as far as my music goes because that's the ones that really know you.
If you're a fan of anything I do, I'm always telling a story. I'm into that - I like it when you don't know if it was true or not.
I wanna go to every country on the Earth.
I think what sets a New York rapper apart from other rappers from other places is just being from New York.
Nas really introduced the world and a lot of people to me - that was ideal as far as me first coming in.
When I'm out of town, I always try to get some readings or some type of new information to where I'm learning more about Islam, just to become the best Muslim I can become.
Nobody uses skits at all anymore, so it seems like I use a lot. That's how I grew up on tapes. Biggie tapes, Biggie albums would have skits. The Lox would have skits. Mase would have skits. All the dudes I grew up on in Nineties rap would have skits on their projects, just to make you feel like you were right there with them.
I want to eventually get to a point where I can make all types of music for every type of crowd.
I feel like I've mastered Dave East. For a long time I was trying to figure out who I was and what sound I wanted to come with.
I think my music is more personal than most of the music I'm hearing.
I write all my own music, everything.
When I'm dead, gone or whatever, people will always remember my name and the music I did during my time.
It took mad failures for me to start to win.
You're born a certain way, but you don't gotta die like that.
I'm never gonna sell my soul or violate myself for no amount of dollars or fame.
With me, I record so much that I just get in the zone.
Wu-Tang was going through it. They didn't come from great homes or families. They really came from hard beginnings so it just made me reflect on my own situation. If Wu-Tang was able to make it, why can't I?
I want to put out music that everyday people can relate to.
Deep down in my heart and what I've seen and what I've been around, there is nothing better than Islam.
I wanna be in a movie, I wanna have a clothing line, I wanna put myself in a position where, when I'm dead and gone, or I can't rap anymore, that's still moving. Tupac and Biggie, they've been dead 10-plus years and people talk about them everyday. I'm gonna try to speak everything into existence. I know the music is my key to get there.
I think R. Kelly is twisted, sick-minded, nasty, perverted - he different. I don't know anybody like R. Kelly.
The reception on 'P2' has been crazy. Every show on the tour has been sold-out. I didn't think people were gonna catch on to it that quick because I started the tour the same day it came out.
I'll never put out some super-dumbed-down music. It'll always have some substance to it.
Since the '80s, Harlem has the place to go. Before the '80s, just as far as hip-hop go, Harlem has always been a strong point, fashion-wise, music-wise, all of that.
Being self-made is a state of mind, and once you put that mentality to work, your success will come.
I want a son.
I never thought I'd be sitting across the table with the owner of Hennessy.
Everybody knows I smoke, drink, and be up in the club, but I don't want that to be my entire thing. I want them to see me get up and go to the gym after a night of clubbing.
Growing up in Harlem, I was always in the parks playing ball.
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