Kyle Quotes

My dad was into the 1950s doo-wop era. If you look at those groups, or at James Brown, Jackie Wilson and the Temptations in the 1960s, you'll see you had to be sharp onstage.

I'm a huge hip hop fan going way back, like, back to '83. I had my Gemini mixer listening to Run-DMC and Kurtis Blow.

While a lot of hip-hop was inspired by jazz or James Brown samples and was made to be played live in the clubs, I made hip-hop that was made for MCs to eat the mic up. It was an aggressive form of hip-hop. It was made just for hip-hop. It's not made to sing or dance to, though you can if you want.

When you go see a good DJ, you'll know it, man - you'll know it in your bones. Between the guy who's phoning it in and the guy who's obsessively working it to give you the best show of his life.

I am hip-hop!

My era was '90s Carhartt-and-Timberlands hip-hop. That's my rock n' roll.

I learned to MC over drum 'n' bass music.

Hip-hop belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It's one of the most radical, revolutionary and reactionary music there is.

I grew up on listening to, like, Mantronix and BDP and EPMD and Kool G Rap and Ultramag and Public Enemy and Fat Boys and Run DMC and a lot of those early records, those Rubin-era records. Those were always snare- and stab-heavy records.

The ghetto music of my era is hip-hop. And Parliament, and Curtis Mayfield, and Marvin Gaye, that was all the ghetto stuff when I was a baby, and then when I was a teenager it was hip-hop and we were taking all those old '70s sounds and recreating them and putting them into a hip-hop format.

I was born in Hip Hop. That's all I ever needed.

Hip hop has been an integral part of my life and my whole career. I started off doing videos with Ice Cube, and Dre, and Mary J. Blige, and TLC. So I've been involved in hip hop since the beginning.

I would have to be traditional and say that my favorite era of hip-hop was between '85-'89. That was the era that got me to love hip-hop.

My whole thing, to keep myself interested - and, you know, I'm a huge hip-hop head - I have tons and tons of a cappellas. So I do these live remix mash-ups with my tracks and just throw them in there.

Hip hop has been an integral part of my life and my whole career. I started off doing videos with Ice Cube and Dre and Mary J. Blige and TLC.

Original hip hop manipulated technologies of all sorts; it was not manipulated by the technology itself.

I never wanted to just press play on some DJ set and let the lights do all the work. I value old-fashioned performance a little more than that.

I like golden-era hip-hop because they were recording on a 2-inch tape. There was dirty, raw sampling. It's nasty. It has a vibe to it.

In f(x), when I'm doing K-pop, that's cool - that's our concept. But me, as a solo artist, I'm just me. I'm gonna wear my jeans, my Jordans, and I'm just gonna be a little stupid on stage.

When I listen to hip-hop, I listen to Just Ice, Boogie Down Productions, Ultramagnetic MCs. I grew up in that age, and it was memorable. But I'm down with all of it. Chuck D or Danny Brown? I feel comfortable with all of them. Word up, kid! Word up, man!

Hip-hop has always been evolving.

Imagine if James Brown was your roommate. What? Do you know how much fun you'd be having all the time? Oh my God, he would have you looking the freshest. He would have you doing the funnest stuff for sure, easily. You'd be having the most crackin' parties.

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

We always do kinda like the bare bones representation or variation of the voice and drums, which is what we feel is the foundation or backbone of rapping and hip hop.

I grew up a hip-hop kid doing mix-tapes.