MF Doom Quotes

Nas always been my favorite rapper, but 50 Cent, he changed my way of thinking about music 'cause he was so detailed in his music, I knew that wasn't lying. I never felt Tupac that way; I never felt Biggie that way. I love Nas music, but I never felt and believed like, 'This is for real.' 'Cause I grew up that gangsta lifestyle.

I don't know how the rap game is, because I'm a fan of reality, and the rap game's entertainment.

When people say to me 'what do you think of rap music?' my answer is there's no such thing. There's rap and there's music.

My favorite rappers are, I can't really say. I like Kanye because he's so creative. He'll just do anything. I like what Kanye's bringing to the game. Lil Wayne. I like Wayne.

The roots of rap are originally ghetto-ised or extremely working class. So when you're an artist who's making something which isn't how its mainstream appearance should be, there's always these strange questions of authenticity and what you have to do to be 'real' as a rapper.

If we're evaluating cool to the way other rappers appear to be cool, then I'm not cool at all.

I was, like, in a rap gang. I loved rap, and it was all around me.

I was just trying to fit into a certain spectrum. Just like, basic rap.

Every generation wants that real hip-hop. And I've always been able to bring that.

In hip hop, 'real' has always meant one who represents in actuality what they present in imagery. For instance, once upon a time, if a rapper spoke about being gangsta, they needed to truly be that, or they were 'frontin.'

I don't like rap music at all. I don't think it's music. It's just a beat and rapping.

I've been called everything. Gangsta rap. I've been called conscious rap. You know, everything. Whoever feels like calling it whatever they want to call it, that's on them.

I've always been rapping before I was making money off of it. Before I made a profit, I had always been rapping.

A lot of the music, and especially rap, I don't understand.

I made the decision that I was going to make rap music in, like, fourth grade, so it's been something I was saying for a long time.

To me, rap music is bigger than who's the coolest rapper, the biggest rapper. It's everything about your personality.

I'm not one of those pop guys. That's for wimps like Vanilla Ice.

I got tired of the Ramones around the time I quit and I really got into rap. I thought it was the new punk rock. LL Cool J was my biggest idol.

I listen to a lot of music, and I listen to some rap, and I do like listening to Biggie Smalls.

Hip-hop is like underground. I don't know if hip-hop exists anymore. I don't know if it does.

You can't be Eazy-E and not move a certain way, basically. So, I studied the culture of it, and also, one of my uncles is from L.A., and he's great. He was like my performance coach. He helped me get the lingo down pat. He helped me get a lot of things down pat because I would talk in that accent for 10 hours a day.

I started rapping before anybody had ever bought a car from it. It was truly about the art form and the culture, more so than now, where it's a successful way to make money. Back then you had to be doing it because you liked it.

People want me to be funny all the time. They think I'm being funny no matter what I say or do and that's not the case.

I'll always love rap, no matter what's going on.

They keep the song as street as it needs to be. It's got a good catchy hook where it can do what it needs to do on the radio, but they keep the song street where it will keep credibility in the hood.