Melvyn Bragg Quotes

I was bringing the whole music, hip-hop, art, break dancing and urban cultural thing to the downtown table.

I am looking to get into the grime rap U.K. scene.

Growing up in the mid-to-late '90s in London, you start seeing the explosion of drum'n'bass and then the birth of U.K. garage and grime. I decided to focus a lot of my energies as an aspiring MC. It was a very natural way to express yourself as a kid from a certain kind of neighborhood.

Feed me hip-hop and I start tremblin'

In my opinion, hip-hop has a lot to do with rock and roll, because at one point it was considered an alternative - edgy, independent. Hip-hop is pots and pans the way that punk is garage. You make something out of nothing.

Rap is definitely a youthful expression.

As far as Hip Hop Manhattan was after the Bronx.

Hip-hop is all over the planet.

Hip Hop is thee dominant youth culture in the world right now.

I was a rapper and a DJ, and if you wanted to be involved in hip-hop, you had to be involved in the sonic, the kinetic and the visual aspects. The visual was graffiti.

When you talk about rap you have to understand that rap is part of the Hip-Hop culture.

A lot of times, when people say hip-hop, they don't know what they're talking about. They just think of the rappers. When you talk about hip-hop, you're talking about the whole culture and movement. You have to take the whole culture for what it is.

Hip-hop culture is probably one of the most powerful things to come out of America in a long time - everything from the music to the art to the dance to the language.

Hip hop has the urgency and rebelliousness that early rock n' roll and punk had: a level of rule-breaking and flirtation with danger. It allows you to break the rules.

Growing up in New York City and hip-hop are two inseparable things, two things that are totally intertwined in our lives.

Grime is still quite new. You can't expect national radio and national media to get it straight away.

For me, hip-hop has always been black superhero music.

I've been interested in hip-hop since it first appeared: the fact that it was born not in the music industry but on the street, the idea of using a turntable as an instrument, singing vividly about reality instead of typical love songs, and its links to graffiti and dance.

I was making grime before anyone else.

Since I was a kid, I was listening to hip-hop.

I always loved hip-hop, being a black little kid. I always used to freestyle on the bus when I was young. It was always a part of my life.

Hip-hop is a worldwide culture. We have permeated every urban environment.

I was in high school and college as hip-hop was really sort of coming into its own as a, you know, creative force, as a sort of cultural voice. And it really spoke to me.

The first rhymes I wrote, I was 9. It was Kool Moe Dee-style.

When my time is up in hip-hop, it's going to remain what Afrika Bambaataa thought it was supposed to be. It's going to remain what Kool Herc thought it was supposed to be; what Wu-Tang Clan sees it as; what Outkast sees it as; what Snoop Dogg sees it as. People are trying to forget that brand of hip-hop.