Top 231 Quotes & Sayings by Rakim - Page 3

Now life is imitating art.

We lost the connection between the entertainment world and the neighborhoods.

I wake you up and as I stare in your face, you seem stunned. Remember me? The one you got your idea from?

Self-esteem makes me super, superb and supreme

I used to roll up: this is a hold up, ain't nuthin funny. Stop smiling, be still, don't nuthin move but the money.

There's so many different ways to write a rhyme its stupid man. I don't understand why the majority of the rap game sounds the same.

I always had an intelligence with me, I was always in the streets, I was always trying to do good. I was always looking for something to guide me. In the beginning church wasn't it.

I love to see when people are real passionate about what they feel and what they say.

I ain't no joke, I used to let the mic smoke, Now I slam it when I'm done and make sure it's broke.

It might sound crazy but you put your money up and take out a little every week. You put yourself on a salary instead of getting $7,000 this week, $20,000 next week and $5,000 the week after that. Take a $1,000. You got your toys, you got everything and your money under your mattress. Break it down and have a salary to take care of you and your family and stretch that money.

I can take a phrase that's rarely heard/Flip it - now it's a daily word

Feed me hip-hop and I start tremblin'

It's been a long time...I shouldn't have left you Without a strong rhyme to step to.

A lot of times when people listen to music it's because they feel down, and that's when serious hip-hop comes into play. When times is hard, people can hear a rapper that inspires them to do what they [are] supposed to do.

The older I get the wiser and more skillful I get.

I came in the door, I said it before I never let the mic magnetize me no more. But it's biting me, fighting me, inviting me to rhyme, I can't hold it back...I'm looking for the line. Taking off my coat, clearing my throat, My rhyme will be kicking until I hit my last note.

I go to Queens for queens to get the crew from Brooklyn, Make money in Manhattan and never been tooken. Go Uptown and the Bronx to boogie down, Get strong on the Island, recoup, and lay around.

What was once easy became confused and hard, which brings us back to the mystic question, who is God?

I'm you and you are me. I'm a man and you're a man. When people understand the more they know Self, the real Inner Self of themselves it's the same physical structure you've got. The same things you deal with I deal with. Everything derives from the mind. What's funny is the mind is the hardest question and I guess that's why I'm always writing about it.

The man is the captain, the women is the lieutenant and the kids are the soldiers. Like right now I'm not home with my kids. I teach my Wisdom so when I'm not there she takes care of the shorties. Just like the sun shines on the moon, and when the earth rotates and the moon is over here, and the sun is over here, and the sun and its shaded on the side we get light from the moon, showing and proving how we're symbolic to the stars and things of that nature.

I saw a lot when I was young. The first time I got arrested I was twelve years old.

I've been writing for so long I got a lot of different ways to write.

When you're trying to please both sides of the fence at the same time you really can't do that.

You have to learn how to take an allowance.

I'm everlastin, I can go on for days and days With rhyme displays that engrave deep as X-rays I can take a phrase that's rarely heard, FLIP IT Now it's a daily word

Man is symbolic to the sun. The sun is dealing with a ball of fire and didn't go out yet. Me being symbolic to the sun, that's what keeps me going, that's like my hunger. That's like my fury, my self esteem. That's the elements within me that keep my body motionable. The fire is self esteem. Inner strength.

When I go out I get so much love I gotta change my way of thinking.

As far as our physical form, the mind is a great temple. But it has a life span and it dies.

I always gave my moms and pops the utmost respect. I didn't talk back to my peoples. The way they presented themselves to us, we knew. Don't talk back to moms and pops.

I'm one dude and when I make my bed I lay in it but don't stereotype me. Never sold a crumb to this day and I don't do nothing on the side.

Every time I sit down and write I got to put something conscious in there. It's like I got a job now. They say that for those that know you got to deal in equality. If you know and you don't speak on it and don't apply it, it's like you're the worst hypocrite. I feel I got a job to do, being that I study so much and I believe in Allah like I do, I feel like I got to spread the word.

Subconsciously, Islam took over me so it was like eighty or ninety percent of the fabric of the person I was.

Tried to put shame in my game to make a name, I'mma put it on a bullet...put it in your brain.

If something comes at me of course I'm gonna handle my business but I'm not the type to provoke the bullshit so I don't really get a lot of that.

I got one of the illest crews in NY but when I travel it's mostly me and my girl, me and my kids or me and one or two of my dudes but the majority of the time its just me.

Being in this game if you are gonna sell drugs and make records too then as many records you make is gonna be as many people that know you sell drugs. We got the hip hop cops listening now.

It might take a while but I think the rap game is the people that can do it. We're all role models more than athletes because athletes don't wear clothes like the kid in the hood and they don't walk and talk like the kids in the hood. We're closer to them than anybody because they can look at us and see them.

A lot of reasons I didn't do records with people is because I never wanted their light to reflect on me.

I've always been a picky eater but I'm not the healthiest eater.

There is still consciousness in hip hop.

You can hear the seven sins Blowin' through the ghetto wind.

There's things in the Bible when you read the Quran there different wordings. The Quran is dealing with the Most High and the Bible is dealing with God. If they read them both and put it together they'll know what the true culture is.

I had a little more freedom when I started sampling because you could actually do what you wanted to do.

I try not to eat too much beef. I try to eat healthy.

My moms is strictly Christian but once I got knowledge of self and started reading she used to love when I would sit there and tell her some of the things that I learned. It gave her an open mind to where she started believing in the most high.

If anybody can make a change it's the rappers.

A lot of the things that go on we can avoid some of it.

Some of you been trying to write rhymes for years, But weak ideas irritate my ears. Is this the best that you can make? Cause if not, and you got more...I'll wait.

I've always been a fan of hip hop and there are cats out there that I admire.

Things happen for a reason.

So all hail the honorable, microphone phenomenal Persona is unbombable? Trust me son, I continue like a saga do, bringin' you the drama to allow you that the chronicle has just begun.

And I'll break, when I'm through breakin, I'll leave you broke, Drop the mic when I'm finished, and watch it smoke

Hopefully the rappers can start to open the eyes in the neighborhoods and communities.

Whenever I sat down to write something it was never anything I took lightly. It was something that I'd want you, somebody in Japan, and somebody [over there to hear it].

What I want to do right now is give hip hop back to the hood. Before it was a neighborhood thing where it belonged to the hood and the rappers were reporting and there were rules and parameters. Now it seems like the artist's game.

Rappers are separated.

I always tried to manage my money smart.

Now I got kids and I'm more wise now. Life means more to me than having fun. I'm more calm, more wise, and more cautious.

I never wanted to do the mixtape circuit and 300,000 people hear it and that's a chapter of my life and when I do another album I'm coming off of that chapter but the whole world didn't hear that chapter so it's like I would have to start over.

Get your money and as long as nobody is stepping on my wad then we're good.