Ad-Rock Quotes

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

To be hip-hop is much more than just rapping in the production. It is more in the attitude.

You are not doing hip hop; you ARE hip hop.

Hip-hop started as this niche moment, and the values of it, the cultures that it carried on its back; language, clothes, the way you wear your clothes, the items that you consume, all came with the music as an art form. And those things helped transform how people buy, shop, speak, engage.

Hip-hop is a cultural expression - it's embracing.

Hip-hop is ever changing but you'll always have the pack. And you'll always have those people who are separated from the pack.

I grew up around hip-hop so I didn't think it was about being cool or being black or being white or whatever.

Graffiti has an interesting relationship to the broader world of hip-hop: It's part of the culture, but also in a weird way a stepchild of the culture.

Rap is a gimmick, but I'm for the hip-hop, the culture.

I was playing hip-hop when everybody else was playing the giant rave music.

I'm a big hip-hop fan since being a kid. It was the first music that spoke to me and made me feel like, 'Yeah.'

I come from a young, hip-hop, urban world.

Hip-hop is a way of life. It isn't a genre in truth in 'American Idol.'

I always thought I'd look corny in the type of rap video in the club with girls and all that type of stuff. I just didn't think I could really pull that off. We always think it's more fun and better just to go outside the box and to use our videos to show cool concepts.

I listen a lot to rap, and I'm inspired to take it, to use it in another way, to get the message across.

Growing up in New York City and hip-hop are two inseparable things, two things that are totally intertwined in our lives.

I love hip-hop, but hip-hop is a way of life.

Harlem World' is all about me doing my thing.

Revolution is Tupac showing a young artist that he can scribble in a notebook and it's worth a lot.

Rap is something you live; hip hop is something you do.

Hip-hop saved me. It gave me permission to use language in a certain way. It validated my community and my friends. It gave our slang a certain elegance.

Hip-hop is substance. It's social. It's science - that's what it started off as. We have fun, and we still having fun; ain't nothing wrong with fun, but we need that social, we need that substance, we need that science, and we need that spiritual.

Atlanta is down south, the club. So the most thing played down there is club music. Everybody wants a hit.

I was really inspired, working with Odd Future.

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.