Awkwafina Quotes

My dad is from Queens. I remember visiting as a kid. My grandparents grew up here. All the actors I respected were coming out of here. All the hip-hop I was listening to - Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, Biggie, Wu Tang - was coming out of New York. I'm just into it.

I liked the Beastie Boys and A Tribe Called Quest and Cypress Hill.

I grew up listening to a lot of Snoop Dogg and the Wu-Tang Clan. Actually, I was a huge Wu-Tang fan.

As far as rap goes, I grew up in Hollis, Queens, so early influences were people like Run DMC and LL Cool J.

I look at Lil Wayne as being from my generation.

New York was at the forefront of rap, so because of all the great people who have gone before me, being a rapper from Queens, I have to live up to those standards. I'm basically just a regular guy who says what he feels and likes to joke. I like long walks on the beach... and I love rap.

The only time I ever really got into rap was back in the early '90s, and bands like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Gang Starr. Musically, they were really interesting. But when hip-hop acts start sampling Sting or Phil Collins, then I just don't get it at all.

I wanted Season 2 of Luke Cage to be Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate,' or Fugees' 'The Score,' or Public Enemy's 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,' or my favorite, 'The Low End Theory' by A Tribe Called Quest.

I'm really influenced by '90s hip hop. A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul were my heroes growing up.

We started playing music because of the Wu-Tang Clan.

I wanted to be Ice Cube when I was younger.

New York hip-hop inspired me a lot.

When I was up in New York, the first record my parents bought me was the Terror Squad record with 'Lean Back.'

I grew up in the Bronx. I'm into rap music.

People forget how dominant Public Enemy became in the mid '80s. No one talks about how transformative they were. And then that led to the '90s and the sort of East Coast v. West Coast stuff, which is kinda when I came of age.

Hip hop is the way it is because of America.

I respect Soulja Boy.

My rap name as a kid was Big Tasty.

I grew up looking up to DJ Premier, who would have the illest hip-hop joint on everybody's album.

At a earlier age, I was kind of into a pretty large scope or range of music from Hieroglyphics and the Hobo Junction guys and all that to like a lot of stuff that was in New York like Diamond D, Nas, Brand Nubian, of course Biggie, OC, Organized Confusion, Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Digable Planets, who I just saw recently, and they killed it.

Kendrick Lamar is a great, great thinker. He's a tremendous artist.

I love Drake and Future, and I gotta bump some Jay Z for that New York flavour too.

I got no problem with Nas.

Fashion has always been influenced by hip-hop.

I'm just a Harlem dude that can rap, and people dig my style and persona.