I`m lucky in that in my character in hip hop is me. I`m Michael Render. My character is Killer Mike. But the truth that I sing in my raps align themselves with the policy of Bernie Sanders.
I am Michael Render - that's what my mom named me. 'Killer Mike' is what my dumb friends called me in a rap battle once, and it stuck.
While a lot of hip-hop was inspired by jazz or James Brown samples and was made to be played live in the clubs, I made hip-hop that was made for MCs to eat the mic up. It was an aggressive form of hip-hop. It was made just for hip-hop. It's not made to sing or dance to, though you can if you want.
In hip-hop, there's not a lot of love. There's not a lot of love being spread. It's always like 'I'm stuntin' on you raps, or I'm better than you raps.' It's not a lot of 'Yo man, I idolize you raps.'
You can't argue that hip-hop rots away the moral character of kids or rots their brain and still see middle-class white kids going to college who are listening to hip-hop. Going on to become healthy adults listening to hip-hop.
The traditional media never gave Bernie Sanders the time of day. But he went viral the same way hip-hop and new dances go viral. And I'm part of that culture.
I would challenge more hip hop artists that are rapping about what it`s like to be real and the social ills that we face, if you aren`t backing Bernie Sanders, I have to question your credibility in terms of do you mean the songs you`re writing.
The idea of a celebrity endorsing a presidential candidate is nothing new, but the full-throated endorsement for Senator Bernie Sanders from one of the country`s biggest hip hop stars had surprised some political observers.
Hip-hop is the music of the youth. It sort of has the same purpose as what we do, at least lyrically, because we both are communicating a message, just in different ways. Hip-hop artists talk, we sing. They rap forcefully, we sing gracefully.
I think hip hop is dead. It's all pop now. If you call it hip hop, then you need to stop. Hip hop was a movement. Hip hop was a culture. Hip hop was a way of life. It's all commercial now.
Hip-hop is so much about character and caricature that people just see you as a character. Very rarely are you flesh and bone to people.
Hip is to know, it's a form of intelligence. To be hip is to be update and relevant. Hop is a form of movement, you can't just observe a hop, you gotta hop up and do it. Hip and hop is more than music
Hip is the Knowledge, hop is the Movement. Hip and Hop is Intelligent movement
'Bernie versus Bernie,' for me, is these two extremes of capitalism. It's Bernie Sanders, the ultimate socialist, and Bernie Madoff, the ultimate capitalist.
Music helps define the character and is an extension of the character somehow, so that you are able to use both the songs themselves and the way that you sing them to tell something about the character and his story, as well as develop a performance style.
Hip-hop reflects the truth, and the problem is that hip-hop exposes a lot of the negative truth that society tries to conceal. It's a platform where we could offer information, but it's also an escape.
I wake up hip-hop,
Go to sleep hip-hop,
Dream 'bout hip-hop,
'Cause I AM HIP-HOP.
Somewhere down the line, the evil ones stole the legacy of hip hop and flipped it to a corporate type of hip hop. They decided to tell everybody 'Well, this is what hip hop is,' instead of coming back to the pioneers and getting the true definition of what hip hop is and what it was and what we been pushing for all these years.