Tyron Woodley Quotes

I don't even like New York rappers.

Man, me and Biggie were the biggest artists in New York. When he passed, I was so messed up. My attitude was messed up about him dying. There was an East-West thing back then, and I was in war mode.

New York gave me hell for that 'Purple Swag,' man. They didn't respect me until 'Peso.'

I like the Wu Tang Clan a lot.

Growing up in the Bay, I was still looking for a lot of East Coast hip-hop. I had an older homie put me on to a lot of stuff like Nas' 'Illmatic.'

I met Tupac through Queen Latifah in New York at this party that we were at, at a place downtown called Big City Diner.

People forget how dominant Public Enemy became in the mid '80s. No one talks about how transformative they were. And then that led to the '90s and the sort of East Coast v. West Coast stuff, which is kinda when I came of age.

I love Drake and Future, and I gotta bump some Jay Z for that New York flavour too.

I got no problem with Nas.

I had a lot of respect for Prodigy. He brought the hood to the booth. When we were trying to shape this rap thing into something, he was one of the cats I respected for bringing the hood into the booth.

'Strong Island' is slang for Long Island, New York. And it really grew out of - what may surprise people, it really grew out of the very vibrant hip-hop scene that, you know, is located and still generates artists out of Long Island.

I grew up on Wu-Tang and Tribe and Nas, all the raw, very New York-driven music. Then when I got older - in my late teens, early twenties - and that's when I started to listen to Drake and J. Cole, and so it wasn't just East-coast.

Nas is like King Queensbridge: he's the man out there.

I felt like I related to East Coast lyricism a little more. Because I couldn't be super gangsta.

The funniest thing in the world to me is the idea of a white guy in his thirties going, 'Wait - I'm going to go into hip-hop.'

Our style of hip-hop, our style of beats, our style of rhymes - you gonna give us burn. We gonna get our burn that we deserve.

I grew up listening to a lot of 2Pac and a lot of East Coast, West Coast rap; Bad Boy, Lil Kim, Foxy Brown, Biggie, 2Pac. Super hip-hop, super listening to that raw era of music.

I listen to my early Gang Starr interviews, I'm like, damn I was really trying to sound like a New Yorker then.

Now it seems like hip hop belongs to the people you see in the videos and radios. So I want to give it bring it back to the hood, make a statement for NY to put us back in our proper perspective, and of course let them know that Ra still spits fire.

I grew up in the Bronx. I'm into rap music.

New York City pretty much reeked of music. Reeked of rap and hip-hop. As for me, growing up in a strict West Indian, Trinidadian household, and a Christian household as well, I had to fight for the right to go and actually be a part of it.

In Indiana, I wasn't anything special. But in New York, I've gone out with girls with purple hair who go out with me because I'm exotic!

In 1977, hip-hop literally wasn't outside the boroughs. But I was profoundly aware of the city through films like Saturday Night Fever, The French Connection, and Network. I had a friend who visited New York, and I asked him what it was like. He said, "Oh, it's great. Just wear a coat and don't look anyone in the eye."

No matter how far you go, if you can't go back to the essence, you're not sayin' nothin'. The essence for me is hip-hop. But the hip-hop community I came up in isn't a loyal community.