Tupac Shakur Quotes

For a long time I heard rap without paying attention, but it is still a way of life, even when you're a kid.

One of the great things about rap music... it leaves a lot to be desired, as far as I'm concerned, musically, but I do recognize the very important place that it has in music and in creating role models for younger kids to emulate, giving them the dream that they can make it out of whatever situation they're in.

Sometimes people say yo do you think rap changed you. No doubt it changed me. If I wasn't making records I'd still be hanging every night.

If you see something is going wrong within politics and the world today, then some Hip Hop artist is gonna come along and get straight with it. If they think that there's a lot of racism going on then there's another Hip Hop artist who's gonna come out and speak their mind.

Rap has so many possibilities that need to be explored. There are different factions of rap, but some are in a rut. Rap doesn't have to be about boosting egos and grabbing your crotch and dissing women. There's a way to make political and social issues interesting and entertaining to the young rap audience.

I wanted to have a body of work behind me before I wrote about racism.

I'm very into film and strengthening what it means to be a rapper and to be a black dude from Chicago.

I think the best entertainment tackles social issues in a sort of seamless way.

Historically, hip-hop is about a generation of artists rapping about the realities they see in their neighborhoods or the 'truths' they hear growing up in their homes.

Gangsta rap often reaches higher than its ugliest, lowest common denominator, misogyny, violence, materialism and sexual transgression are not its exclusive domain. At its best, this music draws attention to complex dimensions of ghetto life ignored by most Americans. Indeed, gangsta rap's in-your-face style may do more to force America to confront crucial social problems than a million sermons or political speeches.

As long as there's a demand for gangsta rap, it will be supplied.

Somehow the rap game remind me of the crack game

The U.S government hates rap music

I thank God for Hip Hop because Marvin Gaye didn't have that and he was able to be that dope. For us to have that and more, I feel like it is up to us to be as dope as we can possibly be.

The rap game has to save itself. Everybody's saving it. People like Lil Wayne is saving it. He's bringing energy to it.

It's just that when you heard hip-hop, no matter where you were, it was a culture that kind of made you want to try to be part of it. Whether you thought you were an artist, whether you thought you could be a DJ, whether you thought you could breakdance, or whether you thought you could rap. It was the kind of culture that had a lot of open doors.

Rap music came along and saved my life. I started to tell the stories of the streets and that was my way out.

It's not about what you get out but what you put into hip hop as a genre.

You can't expect to be on MTV and critique George Bush. You can't expect to be on BET or the cover of 'The Source' advocating Jesus Christ or Buddha or Hindu Krishna or Moses. As a conscious rap artist, you have to play in the arena that you're supposed to be in. What is that arena? That arena is the college market. The conscious rap artist woos the college market, even though the college market is the wildest, most sexed-out, drug-driven market in the country, possibly the world.

I rap for listeners, blunt heads, fly ladies and prisoners

All of a sudden it became that hip hop didn't used to be about partying; hip hop used to be about putting out a message.

Rap is stress, but it pays great.

I think the rap community always tells the truth. And I think that it's important that we listen to their voices so we can have a roadmap, because artists - almost every single artist in hip-hop, they paint a picture of society that's overlooked. The misogyny, the racism, the violence, the homophobia, these are things that we try to avoid instead of dealing with. All of that I see it so often.