F. Gary Gray Quotes

I didn't have to leave my neighborhood to be surrounded by the things that 'Super Fly' is about. It was easier than most scripts because it was about an environment that I knew.

When I did 'Boyz N The Hood', I never thought how we grew up in South Central was interesting enough for a movie.

My formative years would be in South Central Los Angeles. It was a really volatile environment, but, I always say, when you're living in the hood, you don't live this life where you're crying every day, downtrodden every day.

I grew up in Compton: 116th and Wilmington.

I grew up in South Central Los Angeles in the '80s, back when it just wasn't a cool scene. But my mother had the foresight to look for a number of projects that would keep us away from the streets.

I love rap because it talks about pain that comes authentically from the ghetto. It moves me.

Hip-hop is a voice for voiceless poor people.

I rap about Memphis and what a dangerous spot that is.

Growing up in the streets of Bed-Stuy, it was hard, yo.

I don't consider myself a gangsta rapper. But I'm probably more qualified to be a gangsta rapper than people who call themselves that. I've been through that life.

Where I'm from is like 'Hustle & Flow' versus '8 Mile.' It's that really grimy, box-Chevy, dope-boy, working-class music.

Hip-hop - it's the safari: it allows people who aren't under those circumstances to come closer to inner-city life, to explore it without actually being in danger. It's something kids in middle America indulge in to be rebellious.

As of late, 'Boyz n the Hood' really impacted me because I grew up in that same neighborhood. It was the first time I saw a true reflection of me, my neighborhood and my surroundings.

The 'here' of Watts is pastel houses with window gratings in curly patterns. 'Here' is yard sales with bins full of stuffed animals and used water guns. Here is Crips turf.

There were uncles in my life that definitely knew the street life.

N.W.A. were the first great rap audio documentarians of the problems in our inner cities.

I'm going to make my own 'Trapped In The Closet' one day, about a black kid growing up in the hood.

When people hear my music, they ain't really hearing about no shiny stuff, the glamorous life. They're going to hear that gritty, slum.

You could name practically any problem in the hood and there'd be a rap song for you.

Red-hot songs were born on the black streets of Baltimore, where I delivered five-gallon cans of kerosene and ten-pound bags of coal.

I lived the street life for a minute; I lost a lot of friends.

I was born in D.C. on 8th Street. I know what's up. I know what time it is. I used to hang out in Brooklyn and in the Bronx as a teenager. I know what the real world is like.

Hip-hop is the streets. Hip-hop is a couple of elements that it comes from back in the days... that feel of music with urgency that speaks to you. It speaks to your livelihood and it's not compromised. It's blunt. It's raw, straight off the street - from the beat to the voice to the words.

I know two L.A.s. Half my life was around the house my folks had for 46 years at 3rd and Norton. The other half was in Boyle Heights on the Eastside, working with gang members.

I live in a neighborhood that's really filled with sound - there's a lot of Jamaican auto body shops, and the guys next door play hip hop.