Mekhi Phifer Quotes

You seen my shows; I bring the 'hood out.

Where I'm from in Harlem, everybody look like a rapper.

But with rap music - not just N.W.A. - but rap music in general, seeing these artists wearing these team logos all the time started bringing a synergy and energy about having to rep your city, your team, everywhere and all the time.

Outside of hip-hop, it was in comics that I most often found the aesthetics and wisdom of my world reflected.

When I was about nine, I went to school with a toothbrush in my mouth. I saw Method Man do it in a video.

Pop culture mirrors culture, and, I think, as a rapper, hip-hop in a lot of ways mirrors the things that are happening in urban neighborhoods.

How can you call yourself a cosmopolitan modern person if you don't know what hip-hop is?

Harlem is a stage. It's like its own planet, from the way we dress to the swag in the way we walk and talk.

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.

Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears all the rappers, they're doing my dances and they're making billions doing my dances. When they do that little thing they do with their hands that's The Fly and The Pony.

If all I ever wrote about was inner city freaks, I think it would be dishonest.

It would be pretty funny to see a Beverly Hills white girl with mad rap skills.

The roots of my music start from the ghetto.

I have a very broad demographic, from the 8-year-old who knows every word to 'Ice Ice Baby' and the college kid who grew up on 'Ninja Rap' to the soccer mom and grandparent.

When I was sitting at home watching 'Yo! MTV Raps' as a kid, seeing the bright jackets excited me.

I started writing because I saw such a huge lack of complex stories about the inner city.

I like Badshah's songs, as they are very cool, catchy, and very young. I think that's very important... It's connecting with the youth.

I'm a fan of hip-hop. I'm a fan of rap, so anything new that's happening, I'm hip to it.

Highbridge - everybody rap in Highbridge; everyone grew up rappin' or playing basketball.

I can remember being a young kid, twelve, thirteen years old just with my headphones on, on the train, listening to rappers paint these vivid pictures. Listening to Mobb Deep and feeling like I was in Queensbridge even though I'm on the Southside of Chicago.

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

Hip-hop basically controls the world through fashion, through music, through language, through culture. It's basically running the world, no matter what anyone wants to think, and that's just the way it is.

Fashion has always been influenced by hip-hop.

I grew up in Manhattan. For Manhattanites, Brooklyn was the sticks, a second-rate civilization. My friends and I, we were so snobby. Living in the Bronx or Brooklyn was incredible... for me, that was like a foreign country.

My biggest influence is rap. It spoke to me, probably because of my upbringing in Christiania. You listen to 'The Chronic' and you can hear that anger and frustration.