Vic Mensa Quotes

I wanted to bring the R&B flavor and other Westernized sounds to my music, because that's the type of music I grew up listening to.

We mix a lot of genres - soul, pop, jazz - but we most agree on hip-hop.

Being a student of hip-hop in general, you take technical aspects from places. You may take a rhyme pattern or flow from Big Daddy Kane or Kool G Rap.

I like African music but also R&B, rap, alternative rock, and classic.

My music is a little bit of everything - R&B, hip-hop, EDM.

I started with soul music and icons like Aretha Franklin and Etta James and then moved to R&B and artists such as Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill. Electronic music came later on, when I was in high school and I was really influenced by artists like Skrillex and Major Lazer.

People like my beats because of the crazy flow with the hi-hats and the bass.

I like Akon, I like some of Lil Wayne when he uses that funky voice. Anything progressive.

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.

To its credit, hip-hop is my favorite genre, to this day, and it's hard not to be influenced by the culture and by the movement of it and by the soul of it.

I started DJing, breakdancing and MCing in the '70s and I got my record deal in 1979 with 'Christmas Rap.'

I'm not looking to go out there and make a rhythmic Timbaland track.

Every time I want to impress someone about samples and hip-hop, I play 'Portrait of Tracy.' It's one of the greatest bass players ever doing a whole composition with only the two harmonics of electric bass; then a three-second loop in it became every great R&B song in five-year intervals.

The Bee Gees were always heavily influenced by black music. As a songwriter, it's never been difficult to pick up on the changing styles of music out there, and soul has always been my favourite genre.

My father's record collection was full of New Orleans music of all kinds. I used to listen to the radio in New York, and all there was on it at the time was Madonna and Michael Jackson, so it sort of passed me by.

My style of music is the great American songbook meets the pop world of the Seventies and Eighties.

The part of modern pop music I don't know much about is hip hop.

Nineties hip-hop was a big influence for me; it still is. I love '90s everything. And it's when I was born, too. I'm a '90s kid for sure.

David Bowie's my favorite musician. I love him above all, but I'm really into rap a lot right now.

My musical taste has always been wide. I started out as a folky before I moved on to blues and soul.

Electronic music has definitely taken over America. There is more and more interaction with hip hop.

I am one of the founders of Hip-Hop along with my brothers Kool DJ Herc and Grandmaster Flash.

My earliest memories of rap music was mixed with my earliest memories of reggae music. They were big sounds around the way, heavy bass lines, strong messages, definitely.

Rap was my drug.

I loved hip-hop. The first stuff I heard was Public Enemy, and I couldn't believe it. It was amazing, and I've always loved hip-hop.