Takeoff Quotes

A lot of the hip hop artists don't write music. They write words.

I get the music, I get the beats. And I go to the studios and write the lyrics.

I have been making hip-hop since I was a kid growing up in New York in the '80s and '90s. It's always been a hobby of mine - I've been making beats and writing songs for as long or longer than I've been acting.

I just sing over hip-hop beats, you know. That's what I've been doing. That's what I started in '09 in my dorm room.

Songwriting is different from music, although I don't deny now that it would be nice to have a little more background in music theory.

Usually, my rhymes are just in my head. I start off with a theme, and once I start rapping and writing and singing, the chorus and all that, it just starts flowing. Then it's done in about an hour! I write a lot of songs.

There's nothing I'd rather do than sort of, you know, sit at my computer and rhyme.

I'm really a singer, so I love songs and I love singing. I like rap music, but I didn't grow up freestyling.

I'll hear a beat and think, 'How can I make this a banger?' I'll write the lyrics on my phone or on a piece of paper, and either way, it's going to be a slapper.

Songwritng is what I do.

Lyrics are the only thing to do with music that haven't been made easier technically.

I've been really enjoying writing articles and writing music and music for movies.

My friends and I took songwriting very, very seriously. My hero was and still is Bob Dylan, but also people like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell and that whole generation.

I started writing rhymes first and then put it to the music. I figured out I could lock it to the beat better if I heard the music first. I like to get a lot of tracks, put the track up and let the music talk to me about what it's about.

Songwriting is what I am trying to stay good at and get better at.

I love songwriting, and rap is part of my songwriting, but I'm not a rapper.

Songwriters often seek the company of fellow songwriters to help finish what they've started, and these days, many do it at songwriting camps.

Oh man, I think Damian Lillard makes good music. He has bars.

I tried to be a rapper. I tried to make beats before I got into comedy, and that's still one of my hobbies.

MCs are authors, and rock musicians who write lyrics are authors, to a degree.

I think of myself as a reporter. I just rhyme my reports and give them a beat.

I'm a songwriter.

I fell into lyric writing because of music. I backed into it.

I've been singing since I was two. Music was my first passion and I love writing, singing, creating and being creative.

Bebop and hip-hop, in so many ways, they're connected. A lot of rappers remind me so much of bebop guys in terms of improvisation, beats and rhymes. My dream is to see hip-hop incorporated in education. You've got the youth of the world in the palm of your hand.