A Quote by Angie Martinez
Imagine the first time you are about to rap in a studio and you find yourself in a booth with Redman and KRS!
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Skateboarding was my introduction to rap and the first rap song that I really liked was KRS-One 'Step Into A World.'
If I were to critique myself - step out of KRS objectively and look at him - I would say that KRS has introduced the concept of being hip-hop, not just doing it. The concept of rap as something we do, while hip-hop is something we live. The concept of living a culture. Don't just look at hip-hop as rap music, see it as a culture.
I was probably 15 when I started going to the studio with the older cats in my neighborhood. They heard me rap outside one time; I was just freestyling. And they invited me to the studio. It's good when you're accepted, no matter what crowd. That's the first step of believing you can do whatever you feel like putting your mind to.
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.
KRS One and LL Cool J are the biggest influences in my rap career, along with Heavy D.
Usually, in the studio, on this sort of thing... you just go out and have a play over it, and see what comes, and it's usually - mostly - the first take that's the best one, and you find yourself repeating yourself thereafter.
You are here. However you imagine yourself to be, you are here. Imagine yourself as a body, you are here. Imagine yourself as God, you are here. Imagine yourself as worthless, superior, nothing at all, you are still here. My suggestion is that you stop all imagining, here.
In New York, I was into Kool G Rap and Polo, KRS-One, that whole big 80s boom.
In the studio, if things go wrong, you stop things and fix them. I have never been in a recording studio, really, where the people in the booth were not interested in making a very good album. It's often a light-hearted atmosphere but serious at the same time.
The hip-hop that I really connected with was Public Enemy, KRS-One, Ice Cube, and N.W.A. That late '80s and early '90s era. The beginning of gangster rap and the beginning of politically conscious rap. I had a very immature, adolescent feeling of, "Wow, I can really connect with these people through the stories they're telling in this music."
I never tried to emulate that New York rap style. What I do is a quasi rap. It's a honky rap, not a black rap. I find it puzzling that so many people have assumed I'm black.
But, Eminem... No, I've loved rap for a long time, especially when it got out of its first period and became this gangsta rap, ya know this heavy rap thing? That's when I started to fall in love with it. I loved the lyrics. I loved the beat.
It's all about the family tree, there's a family tree. You know Melly Mel birthed KRS-One, KRS-One I think birthed Tupac.
When I'm in the studio, I just let it rip. That's my process. I get in the booth, and whatever is on my mind at the time, I just go off and say it.
If you truly want to find a meaningful relationship, you've got to find yourself first and learn to be confident in your own skin. Don't sacrifice anything about who you are to be with someone. That's setting yourself up for failure.
At first you're doing it for yourself, it's about what sounds good to you. It's about expressing yourself. Then you get comfortable as an artist and you find yourself and people get familiar.
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