A lot of the younger kids now can rap, but they're scared of the crowd. Mastery of that stage is an MC. I don't know if you've seen any great MCs on stage but when you do it's like wow, this is more than the words to rhymes.
I don't have to rap in a stadium. As long as I can provide for my family and my art, and live comfortably and live well, then I'm good. And with my talent level and my skill level, I'll get there.
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 know I do swag rap also, but I also take it seriously. It's like 50-50.
Rap is always evolving. It's easy for the old school to hate the new school, but it's a music that got a little stifled I think, by the Internet a little bit.
I think all music - not just rap - has fallen into this very diluted, delusional state, where everyone's singing about money and having cars, and having all this fun; when really, people are losing their homes.
You must not you worry about leaks or pieces [stolen] on your computer. You just make songs, you gotta make music, keep stuff out. You may not know rap, but that's how it works.
You have the rap industry trying to stay above water by giving the people what they want, but then you have the people who are partaking in it and seeing it and they want what they think these artist have.
A lot of people heard about gin and juice for the first time from Snoop Dogg, but it was nothing new in rap music, and it was nothing new in the black community.
The whole world has changed much since the '80's. In the united States, rap music and country music dominate radio and that certainly wasn't the case in the early '80's.
I think people are slowly realizing that don't have to be looking in a mirror to enjoy something. And they're realizing that watching a show with drag queens in it doesn't make you gay any more then listening to rap makes you black.
When I was little, my dad showed me N.E.R.D., their first album, and I thought it was amazing. I thought Pharrell was just killing everything. That was my first introduction to rap.
I had a lot of respect for Prodigy. He brought the hood to the booth. When we were trying to shape this rap thing into something, he was one of the cats I respected for bringing the hood into the booth.
On my teams, as a guy who grew up hunting and fishing, I was in the minority in terms of music and lifestyle. I became good friends with people who listened to R&B and rap. But it wasn't just an issue of being around it - I was naturally drawn to it right off the bat.
The Dallas rap scene is growing, and hopefully we get to a level like Houston - everybody supporting each other, building each other up to be great.
Business money reattaches worldwide
Deep inside stops the diamond rocks
In a million world, billion world, quitrillion world
Rap moves on to the year three thousand
They believed you can't mix rock, country, and rap, and that crossover is dead. I always knew it would work. And it will always work as long as you're really into it and like what you're doing.
What I have that's special in my music is substance. It's music that people can really relate to. I know I'm gonna rap something that somebody has already been through in their life, something that they will understand.
Copyright's democratising effect is seen most clearly in the music business. Anyone who can speak, sing, rap or hum and operate a simple sound recorder can create a copyright song. Imagination is the only limit.
I don't dislike rappers or hip-hop or people who like it. I went to the Def Jam tour in Manchester in the '80s when rap was inspirational. Public Enemy were awesome. But it's all about status and bling now, and it doesn't say anything to me.
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'm a mother myself, and sometimes mothers get a bad rap just because they've tried to do their job. Some people have more of a knack for it than others do, but almost all of it falls to, 'My mother's suffocating me.' Whatever.
I understand what rappers are talking about. I think rap is less about educating people about the black community and more about making money.
I just want to paint that picture of Chicago that everybody's missing, and I just want to rap about it.
I don't really like listening to so much rap because I like to have my mind focused on what I'm doing instead of worrying about what everybody else is doing.
It's funny because as a rapper, there is - and this is something that Clipping challenges all the time - there is this idea about authenticity as a rapper, in the fact that you rap things that are yours. That's not what doing a play is. You're interpreting somebody else's words.
Rap music is a combination of many different arts to make something new. There's always been a stigma that its existence would be short and only appeal to a certain group - but it's the biggest music in the world.
I don't care if it's rap, metal, whatever. You still should play Beatles records mixed with Limp Bizkit mixed with Foghat mixed with Creedence Clearwater Revival, stuff like that.
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.
The rap against Tesla has always been of the 'yes, but' variety. Yes, it's a fine artisanal designer and manufacturer of electric cars, and its CEO is one of the few business leaders alive for whom the label 'visionary' isn't hyperbolic.
I don't know if I'll ever make rap music, but I just like people who are like, 'I am going to just find the medium that's best for this idea and master it and do that.'
If we but give it time, a work of art 'can rap and knock and enter our souls' and re-align us - all our molecules - to make us whole again.
When I got into rap I didn't exactly win any popularity contests. I called myself Dee Dee King, after B.B. King, to the total dismay of my fellow Ramones.
I never tell my artists how to rap or how to approach a song. I let them do the song.
If I'm boxing, I'll probably have rap on, or something a little more angry. If I'm lifting, maybe some rock 'n' roll. If I'm doing some cardio, something fast paced.
Rap was forbidden with the people who were interviewing us and the shows that I was getting [booked on], and I had kind of crossed over. So Jerry [Heller, who managed N.W.A.] would tell me, 'Do not say you're a rapper, always say you're R&B.'
When I say that I'm not dancing, people get it confused, like I'm not going to do anything outside of rap. It's not that. When I leave this earth, I want to be remembered as an M.C. But I'm definitely going to touch a lot of other genres, not just rapping.
You never wanna see yourself there. Like, ever. I'd rather go to jail than see myself on Step Your Rap Game up because I take a lot of time with my stuff.
The mission of '8 Mile' is essentially to garner sympathy for a white rapper involved in an old-school shootout - a rap contest. This may be the final frontier for pop, more unbelievable than the prospect of launching a member of 'N Sync into orbit.
I think rap music is the sole reason for a lot of black acceptance in pop culture; because the music is very popular, it gets our image out in other ways than in movies.
I always had this ego where if I ever wanted to come back to doing rap, I could do that. That was not true. I would get stuck, I would be in a room and someone would ask me for something and I didn't have it.
I came into the rap game in 1992; my life was changing, but my group wasn't successful; I also saw the biggest rappers in the world die all of a sudden in the ensuing years, so it was a matter of conquering yourself before you can conquer the world.
I just like heavy music in general - from heavy rock and heavy metal and heavy rap and heavy everything. I've always been attracted to it.
I know I can't rap forever, but I know as long as I got a label or something I can get money forever.
I definitely don't want to be one of the bad guys. And I don't want to be one of the people who bring rap a bad name. That's not me.
I love folk. I love rap.
Rap music is amazing, it's beautiful. But the problem is the lyrics. The person who writes the lyrics - that's the problem.
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.
There's definitely some parallels between me and Joaquin Phoenix, I think. The line gets so blurry. My rap career wasn't a hoax, but it was absolutely intended to be a joke. The problem was that I really was on a quest to somehow be a Caucasian Ol' Dirty Bastard.
In India we are creating mainstream hip hop music, than what real rap music is. The lyrics aren't that personal, since most of the music is catering to Bollywood. It's just trivial. It's a fashion here.
'The Rap Year Book' is really great. Shea Serrano wrote it, and it became this huge phenomenon where he sold out everywhere and made the bestseller list just on the strength of his fans on Twitter wanting him to succeed.
In the past it seemed like I was making fun of rap a little bit. But it was more me making fun of myself, since I'm not technically a rapper, whatever that means.
I was a huge fan of '90s hip-hop, and a lot of what they got their music from was funk and soul records. They just, like, take a clip of that and rap over it because, you know, that was just kind of what was up.
I feel like when I reach my 500-million-dollar goal, then no other woman in rap will ever feel like they can't do what these men have done
I was lucky enough to see the original cast of 'In the Heights.' This one blew my mind. The infusion of Latin, hip hop and rap with musical theatre, great storytelling and talent was a powerful combination to me during a time when I'd not been moved by much!
My dream was to go to Syracuse. I wanted to be a part of the Orangemen. I actually thought I was going there up until around 10th grade when I knew that wasn't really going to happen, so I started pursuing rap.
A few more albums, a few more years, I'll be like Peter Petrelli in Heroes. I'll be some type of rap super-monster or something.
That's something I can never lose: my love for the art of rap. As I grew older and became more interested in song writing, it just pushed my possibilities further. I always have to have a foot firmly on the floor as a rapper, because that's how I started.
When I was in prison, rap was all I had at that point because I was kicked out of school, all that education just gone and I couldn't come out of prison to play football - that was all over with.
I knew I could rap a little bit, which is not the most unique way for being funny. The more I did it, the better I got at rapping, and then I fell in love with the craft of it, and the possibility that I was a good rapper was very intriguing.
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