Rakim Quotes

I fell in love with hip-hop a little bit late; I grew up on Another Bad Creation and Kris Kross. But my mom got me a TV in my room, and I remember seeing Biggie's 'Give Me One More Chance,' and I was like, 'Oh, this is how a house party looks!' I really, really fell in love with it when Tupac created 'Dear Mama.'

Well unfortunately I didn't work with Andre much. But rap is a strong presence in the culture and anyone is going to grateful for its appearance, grateful for any kind of music that has the kind of effect that rap has had on us all.

I want to plug back into the hip-hop audience. Whether it be fans who grew up watching 'Yo!', or people who have become familiar with the culture via the Internet.

Whether you like him or not, hip hop needs Drake.

I don't even really like rap music.

I listen to Jay-Z, Nelly, Nas, Ludacris and all the young kids out there. I listen to them, and I have mad respect for them.

I still gotta reacquaint myself with the hip-hop audience.

Serious rap music puts me to sleep.

When I started picking out music for myself, I was a hip-hop kid. DMX, The Roots, Outkast, people like that.

I grew up with, maybe not the best hip-hop in the world, but a lot of hip-hop. Will Smith was, like, my jam when I was, like, 9 or 10 years old.

I always heard 50 Cent, Da Brat, Lil' Kim, all that in the house. My mom's playing them - 50 Cent, Kanye West.

I went in reverse with this whole thing. People I've toured with were kids who consumed as much hip-hop as they could. I didn't do that until I started rapping.

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

XXL is the embodiment of hip-hop... Eminem even shouted it out in a song.

I appreciate Drake's music, I appreciate Future's music, I appreciate Lil Durk's music. I appreciate Uzi, Meek Mill, I appreciate Migos.

I always say that I'm a hip-hop fan, and I'm definitely a Drake fan.

My dad and uncles listened to a lot of rap. My dad is a big fan of LL Cool J. Driving in the car with him, we'd listen to Jay-Z and Nas. My sister listened to a lot of No Limit, so I listened to Master P. and Cash Money - Lil Wayne and Juvenile. They had jewelry and nice cars. I was drawn to them.

I can't really even name a person I like in hip-hop music.

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.

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.

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.

My main influence is Kool G Rap and Cam'ron, pretty much. If you were to mix those two people up, I wish that would be me... This is my voice. I sound like nobody; I sound like me.

So I think hip-hop is moving and is going to continue to move in the direction of rappers just being honest with themselves, whether you're talking about Common and Mos Def or Nas and 50 cent.