Rico Nasty Quotes

But I've been freestyling and messing around with rhyming since I was 13. That's when I really started listening to hip-hop music.

I'm a pretty terrible rapper. I always have been.

I write a lot of rhymes, but I don't really end up using them a lot of times, and I end up just freestyling. I like to write music, though, more than I like to freestyle, to be honest.

I was 17 when I first started rapping and 18 before I started taking it seriously - when I really knew I could rap and have fans and be a trendsetter.

I've always been a writer. I've always done writing or spoken-word, hip-hop stuff with my friends.

When I was 13, before I got in high school, I was writing mad raps. I didn't really know if it was good or not, so for a year, I just held them. When I got in high school, I started spittin' bars.

When I was in fourth grade, I started writing a lot of poetry, and eventually, someone in the church was like, 'You should switch this over to rapping.' I went home and did that - started putting my poems over rap.

The weird thing about rap is that you don't get compared in the same way that athletes do, even though it's probably the most competitive sport in music. In basketball, they look at a player and say: 'This guy was the best in his prime at this sport.' But in rap it's not until you're dead or retired that people think about it like that.

Back in the day, when the D.J. would be playing a record, I'd be on the mic trying to hype up the crowd. So once Public Enemy became a rap group, I decided that that's the role that I wanted to take on. I wanted to be the one that was hyping, because I've always been good at it. I can hype up any crowd.

Myself, I'm just a simple country boy who spent time on the streets and developed a style of writing and rapping and a cool sound that people seem to enjoy.

I used to MC a bit when I was young - 14 or 15 years old.

Hip-hop is supposed to help you elevate, or go higher.

I mean rappin' to me is easy, it's something you can do over a week.

I haven't done rap... I can't do that too well.

I've been rapping since I was 18 years old, with a crew called Blades.

People said that way back in the early days I was probably one of the first rappers; the reason is that I couldn't sing, so I had to talk! Lou Reed was probably the one who started it all.

Rapping is the only time I'm serious.

I love rapping. I do. My styling's similar to Missy Elliott - I think she's so dope. In a weird way, that's how I first learned the American accent: doing American rap songs.

Rapping was something I always wanted to do, so after school, my friends and I would catch the bus to my house and just sit there writing songs, every day.

I fell in love with hip-hop at an early age as a culture, as a sound, both from the perspective of a fan and a creative outlet.

I've never considered myself a rapper. I know how to do it. I know how to make my voice project, and I know how to stay on beat and what have you, but I've never considered myself a rapper.

I've been rapping since I was 13.

Rap lyrics are really the only thing I've ever written.

I play instruments and stuff, but I can't rap or anything like that.

Even in this podcast media lane, sometimes you still have to wear your MC hat and let people know how you feel about yourself as an MC, which is very confident.