Top 231 Quotes & Sayings by Rakim - Page 4

Hopefully we get back to the raw essence of hip hop again.

Once I get the track I know what to do with it.

I never tried to crossover or be in the public's eye everyday. I'm laid back with it and at times I wondered if I was doing the right thing promoting myself staying back a little bit and coming out when I felt that I had too. But when I get all the accolades and hear the things people say it just puts it all together for me man. It's a blessing.

I only made x amount of albums in 20 years and to still be living comfortably. A lot of people and friends look at me and be like yo Ra how do you do it? You don't go on tour every year and you don't make an album every year, you chill with your family and watch TV. Everyone else is out on tour getting that money. But I managed to do my thing right with the help of my accountant and I'm still comfortable.

The money from every unit being sold is what I feel every artist should see.

Every time someone come out with an album don't change the whole style up but don't do what they are expecting. Surprise them.

I go up in the supermarkets and people always go what are you doing here and I go I'm hungry in a sarcastic but nice way just to let them know yo I'm human too man.

My whole thing is if it wasn't for people like ya'll and people like them I wouldn't be me. I love every minute of it.

When you come out the streets. I ain't braggin'. I never sold drugs but I kept a joint on me. I got arrested plenty of times back when I was a juvenile. Not saying I was a bad ass. I was a juvenile coming' out to the city, to do MC conventions that Mike & Dave was doing. I had to hold myself down. Now I put the gat up. I chill. I pay more attention to life.

Back then all I cared about was rhyming and making beats. That was my trade, my hobby.

I think it's a combination of my peoples that I grew up under, places that I hung out is what contributed to where I'm at now.

Sometimes I feel I'm the luckiest rapper in the world.

I never sold drugs. A lot of people used to think I was that dude but I never sold a crumb. I used to always be upset with that.

Sometimes people say yo do you think rap changed you. No doubt it changed me. If I wasn't making records I'd still be hanging every night.

Keep your guns on and don't let anybody tell you how to load your guns or bust ya guns.

I think things are gonna change. I'm gonna take the age limit off of hip hop.

That's another thing yo rappers are scared to bring new styles out. There's so many different ways we can be flowing but everybody chooses to flow the generic way.

It is what it is but I do me and I think people respect that. They see me out in the hood by myself or with wifey and I don't have no bodyguards.

I never went to college. I think about it a lot. I can't watch a game without thinking where I would have been if I had ga head and went to college and pursued my career.

Whenever I write a song I see the whole song anyway.

When I hear my first album today I hear myself reading my rhymes but I'm my worst critic.

I see my pops everyday and that's what I wanted.

I loved the hood and still love the hood but I had to realize like Ra you a rapper now you're in the public eye.

I don't accept that the new generation is looking for anything different than what we've always been looking for. Depending on the moment, they want bangers that make them crack their neck, they want tracks that put them in a zone where they can sit back and chill.

Go to the club or go to the block or go hang out and things start coming.

Do what you do don't let the label tell you to do something else.

I don't want to put nobody on blast but in the beginning it's like somebody telling you somebody looks like you and you've been looking in the mirror your whole life and nobody looks like you. Same thing with me.

Sometimes I see where I want to take the song and wind up at the end and come back to the beginning. I don't miss nothing and everything is good. Everything I thought of is incorporated in it.

I'm not a flamboyant artist.

I always had deep respect for my peoples 'cause of the love they gave me and the know how that they showed me through the years.

Now it seems like hip hop belongs to the people you see in the videos and radios. So I want to give it bring it back to the hood, make a statement for NY to put us back in our proper perspective, and of course let them know that Ra still spits fire.

My son plays football so I coach a couple of his teams. My youngest son just started playing last year and I assistant coached for one of his teams. I try to be there as much as I can. I also want to kill the stereotype. I want them to respect me as a man and a father first and then if you like hip hop go buy my album.

When I write I get to the point where I slow down and I gotta go back into the world and live nahmean.

I get the Martian look all the time even in the hood. I walk down to the shopping block and people just look at me with their mouth open man like what are you doing out here and I'm like I'm trying to get a pair of sneakers duke what's good? What are you doing [and I'm like] I'm hungry I wanted some juice and I needed some bread.

I kinda write in sequences that I live through.

I think rap was a better move for me but football's been my love since I learned how to walk. I was gonna be a running back or quarterback. That was my life. That was it but things happen for a reason. I wouldn't trade this in for nothing.

You gotta let the fans shine their glory the way they want. It's like I have a million bosses and my job is to make them happy.

I feel that when we leave here I think it's just another transition and whatever it is I hope I'm prepared for it.

Sometimes you start flowing and shits starts adding on to whatever cipher you're dealing with. Meanwhile you got all of these thoughts in your head and you don't get enough time to put them down. That's another reason I started writing from the last word to the front word. It's methods to the madness. Sometimes I can't understand it or explain it but it is what it is.

When you come in the building with your guns don't take them off.

Even when I was out on tour I used to fly home on the weekends to be with my girl and be with my family to see my kids grow up and just be there for them. When they started going to school it was like that too whether it was homework or if I have to go up to the school I was there.

I don't try to go to the studio and make a single. I just do whatever I feel.

Dabbling in music and being in music when I was young I had my own view of what I thought music was whether it was jazz, r&b, or hip hop.

Sometimes I look at new artists trying to come out or trying to make their name and it's like they're coming into the game blind. They don't really know what the world is going to expect from them and they really trying to get in where they fit in but me I almost got the red carpet.

I just try to eat as good as possible.

I always wanted to kind of make the listener feel like it was them that I was talking about, or to the point that I could say the rhyme, and feel like it's them saying it.

I don't work out too much and it's wild because it bugs me out.

Once I finish one album I know where to begin again.

Before I started rapping and touring I weighed about 160. But by going on the road every night eating fast food, performing every night, partying and drinking I started gaining weight immediately.

I never really liked the idea of doing mixtapes but at the same time it was a big thing a lot of people were doing it and it almost got to the point where if you didn't touch the mixtape circuit it was like you didn't care.

Playing the sax and then enjoying jazz music man. It's like I learned how to find words inside of the beat.