A Quote by Jay-Z
I remember the first time I saw the 'Sugarhill Gang' on Soul Train. I was 11 or 12. I was like, 'What's going on? How did those guys get on national TV?' And then, when I was a little older, a rapper from the neighborhood got a record deal. I was shocked.
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I first started rapping when I heard the Sugarhill Gang in 1979, when I was 11 years old in seventh grade.
I remember I prayed to God. I was like, "Just let me be on TV." Let my friends see me on TV in a good thing. I like, if I'm funny a little bit on a commercial and then I don't need to act ever again. "Just let them see me." And then it worked. I got the commercial. I was on TV. My friends all saw me. I was a kind of a star at school for like three days. And then it faded away and I was hungry and I had to like make another deal with God. I remember it still.
I got into rap when I first heard Sugarhill Gang.
I wrote my first song at 12 and remember someone asking, 'What were you going through at 12 that you could write about?' I get what you're saying, but 11, 12, 13 were the hardest years of my life. You learn everything. You learn how horrible things feel.
I got a job as soon as I could - 11 or 12. I started babysitting and then I got a part-time job at a pharmacy in England. I just remember loving the feeling of going out and buying my own clothes! I'd go bargain-hunting and get secondhand vintage stuff.
When I first got my record deal, I was like, 'I just want to sing,' and I never put much thought into what really goes into a record. But as I got older, I developed a passion for writing.
I started off as a rapper from Thunder Bay, Ontario, believe it or not. There was a little group of 10 or 12 of us that would get together and copy each other's cassettes. So I was a rapper first, and it was that music that got me into this great entertainment world and got me out of Thunder Bay.
I had role models in my community, guys that were older than me and played at university or on the national team. Eli Pasquale was always around UVic when I was a young player, and the national team was around Victoria a little bit, so I got to watch those guys and learn from them.
I was 11 or 12 years old when I first saw 'Reservoir Dogs.' I remember after I saw that film, I kept renting it from the video store because I wanted all of my friends to see it.
I got a chance to get an actual label. I performed this slow song, this ballad I have. I just remember going to the first woman I saw in the room and just getting on my knees holding her hand just singing. And I was like, you know what, I got to just sell it. I remember that day they were like, yo we want to sign you. [After] I went into the bathroom, I started crying, [and] I called my mom. I was like momma – I did it.
It's like going into the Senate. You know, the first time you get there, you're all excited, 'My God, how did I ever get here?' Then, about six months later, you say, 'How the hell did the rest of them get here?'
In that first national election after 9/11 in France, Jean-Marine Le Pen did not win the presidency, but he did get to the final round. He was in the general election. Now, this week, in the first national elections in France after what many people have been calling the French 9/11, the attacks in Paris three weeks ago, this time it`s Jean-Marie Le Pen`s daughter, Marine Le Pen and the National Front, which is still a far right pseudo-
fascistic party, they came in first place in France.
Paris Hilton, that's very interesting what she did. I've never done that. I haven't really sort of ever got into that. As time passes, maybe I should record it and put it in a vault so that when I get a little old don't have the energy I can remember how life used to be.
When I was still back in Cameroon, because I didn't know English, I used to listen to French rap all the time and then a little bit of American hip-hop. And then, when I got to the States, that's when I really got into all those guys - Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, all those guys.
I remember when Muhammad Ali got beaten the first time. I remember when Lennox Lewis got beaten the first time, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson. All of those were legendary fighters, and they came back, and that's what made them different - what they did after they got beat.
I grew up in a very small town, on a farm. There was not even a TV in my house at that time. I didn't have much connection with the outside world and couldn't see martial arts. When I was 10 or 12, that's when we got our first TV. We only had maybe two channels. At 16 years old, I remember watching Marco Ruas on TV.
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