E-40 Quotes

I hope people listen to the music. Don't write it off because there is a Christian doing it and it's been labeled that way, because if I'm honest with you, Christian rap for the most part has been corny.

As a late teenager, the punk movement pushed me further. In particular, the Clash, which happened to leak through the time of disco, showed me that there was this cross-cultural sound that could cut across genres and audiences. Like punk was to disco, rap music was a rebellion against R&B, which had adopted disco and made it worse.

One of the great things about rap music... it leaves a lot to be desired, as far as I'm concerned, musically, but I do recognize the very important place that it has in music and in creating role models for younger kids to emulate, giving them the dream that they can make it out of whatever situation they're in.

There are rap groups that have a positive outlook in their art. These groups should be shown as an alternative to gangsta rap.

My game is like a cross between karaoke and rap: crap.

Eminem is like the godfather of the hip-hop game.

The rap game has to save itself. Everybody's saving it. People like Lil Wayne is saving it. He's bringing energy to it.

Rather than trying to put an end to Eminem or some other rapper, politicians should think about why they're rapping. It's easier to try to censor some kid who's swearing about poverty than it is to stop the poverty.

When I started getting into West Coast rap - The Game, then I started studying a lot of Tupac Shakur and watching his interviews.

No matter what the name, we're all the same pieces in one big chess game.

With so much drama in the L-B-C, It's kinda hard bein Snoop D-O-double-G

But this is one of the things that makes rap at its best so human. It doesn't force you to pretend to be only one thing or another, to be a saint or a sinner. It recognizes that you can be true to yourself and still have unexpected dimensions and opposing ideas. Having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is the most common thing in the world. The real bullshit is when you act like you don't have contradictions inside you, that you're so dull and unimaginative that your mind never changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places.

Eminem has talent, and his talent is the thing that influences many young people who would have never gone anywhere near rap. White kids in different parts of the world use him as a barometer and the standard to live up to. In some ways, Eminem is an artist who has ushered in a new movement.

Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.

If you're a conscious rap artist and you're worried about Billboard charts, you're gonna have a problem.

I hadn't really thought about the kind of music I wanted to make. I was just making raps and stuff. I thought that was the coolest thing in the world.

I am to hip-hop what Obama is to politics

We used to have MTV and all these ways we can show our videos, and it was these rap shows, and it was everything. And then it became not cool to be conscious; it became cool to just hang out. Escapism rap became the norm. And, when I say "escapism rap", I mean getting high, get your cars, get your money, get your jewelry, go to the club, have your women, and it just became all about escaping your reality and not making your reality better on a real tip; not just on the have fun tip.

So for instance in rap music, you very often hear words that would seem very racist, or very misogynous or very homophobic but in some of those instances, the words are being taken back or redefined so that they lose their injurious quality.

Cheat? Good heavens, this is an amateur cricket match amongst leading prep schools, I'm an Englishman and a schoolmaster supposedly setting an example to his young charges. We are playing the most artistic and beautiful game ever devised. Of course I'll cunting well cheat. Now, give me my robe and put on my crown. I have immortal longings in me.

A lot of people heard about gin and juice for the first time from Snoop Dogg, but it was nothing new in rap music, and it was nothing new in the black community.

My mom, she got taken away from me when I was 14 years old. She is incarcerated. My sister was incarcerated. I was homeless. When my mom went away when I was 14... I was forced to live with my aunt. My aunt, she doesn't like rap music. She thinks rap music is the devil's music. Basically she said, "Yo, if you are going to do music you can't do it in my house."