Rakim Quotes

For me, music and life are all about style.

I'm writing songs to perform, to entertain. And when I'm really trying to get inspired, I go backwards, and I just rap.

Creating a dance is like coming up with a Chuck Berry riff.

Longevity always come from lyricism. From the people who can actually rap.

I freestyle everything.

In my dreams, I never have an age.

Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age?

If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, she'd be thinking, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time.

I was a youngster looking up to dudes like Vicky McClure, Joe Dempsie and Michael Socha - in fact, he was a big influence on how I was able to detach drama from the all-singing, all-dancing stigma.

Singing is what got me into everything and made me fall in love with this industry.

You don't want me to sing. I could do a really bad karaoke scene, if I had to, but I'd probably choose to rap.

To do it always right, that is what music is to me.

Why can't you write a great pop song when you are 85? Maybe you can.

I'm a huge fan of Beyonce for so many reasons, and not the reasons that most people are. There's the obvious reasons - she's gorgeous, she's talented or whatever, but I think she's really super-consistent.

I'm a songwriter; that's where it starts. I love writing with someone that shares that same feeling of accomplishment. I'll play music for my fans as long as they'll listen, but I fancy myself as a writer first.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

I'm a songwriter who just wants to bring people great songs.

I am perhaps the oldest musician in the world. I am an old man but in many senses a very young man. And this is what I want you to be, young, young all your life, and to say things to the world that are true.

Records are just moments of achievement. They're like receipts for work done. Time goes on and people keep playing music.

The New York City Ballet is always about the realm of possibilities, the realm of what the human body can do, what the human spirit can do. And it's about listening, it's about listening to remarkable music and how we respond to that.

I don't know what makes a guy want to write songs and sing, but if you've got a message, you want to get it across. When I come up with an idea about the way I feel, I can really state it strongly in a song.

Rhythm is something you either have or don't have, but when you have it, you have it all over.

I would love to be a singer if I had the talent for it. I'd love to be a graphic designer if I had the talent for it. Those are things I've always just admired - the work of other artists.

What we play is life.

If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It's a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.