When you're part of hip-hop culture but you're a Christian, people want you to be either-or. Or they'll create a category for you, like, 'Oh, gospel rap!'
People underestimate the hip-hop audience and the capacity to understand politics when it's part of music.
Hip-hop is really standoffish. It's really competitive and it's really about who's number one all the time. Sometimes it gets out of hand.
Rap music came along and saved my life. I started to tell the stories of the streets and that was my way out.
Mike Tyson and Kool G Rap had lisps - lisps always been cool!
I would do a documentary about Jay-Z. Yes, I would.
Since I was a kid, I was listening to hip-hop.
I'm pretty sure JAY Z don't wanna rap right now.
With rap music, because it's all so on the street, you get treated like a street cat: "All right, you've been eatin' enough, you're fat, get out of the way now and let somebody else come by."
Without me, rap is just a bunch of orphans.
When I think of influential females in hip-hop, my mind goes to Foxy Brown, hands down.
Hip-hop saved my life, man. It's the only thing I've ever been even decent at. I don't know how to do anything else.
I'm really into, like, characters - music characters like Sid Vicious and Kurt Cobain - just, like, how they are and stuff. Like Lil Wayne.
The thing about hip-hop producers, and the thing about hip-hop musicians, is that we listen to everything. And we're inspired by everything. I'd say even more so than any other genre of music.
My biggest moments have been in Philly - I met Jay-Z and Beyonce in Philly, I did the Powerhouse in Philly.
Swag defines an artist, period. Lil Wayne has his super-tattooed pierces and dreads swag. Jay-Z has his New York, grown man, Beyonce and 40/40 Club swag.
I want to learn something from my atheistic brothers and sisters, even though I'm a Christian. I want to learn something from my right-wing brothers and sisters, even though I'm a progressive. I want to learn something from the elderly, even though I'm middle-aged or tilting toward the elderly. I want to learn especially something from the youth. That's why I spend a lot of time in hip-hop studios.
I feel like your city - with hip hop in particular, because we're always beating our chest and shouting where we're from - your city is just as influential as your parents. Even the grimy, hardcore gangster rap from New York - KRS-One and Wu Tang, the stuff acknowledges it.
A lot of times, when people say hip-hop, they don't know what they're talking about. They just think of the rappers. When you talk about hip-hop, you're talking about the whole culture and movement. You have to take the whole culture for what it is.
Maybe there's a different story when it comes to hip-hop or different genres, but as far as rock music goes, I think there is a sort of fear of saying things people might be apt to criticize. Our band is the opposite of that.
The vibe on 'Starboy' comes from that hip-hop culture of braggadocio, from Wu-Tang and 50 Cent, the kind of music I listened to as a kid.
Hip-hop's always reached out to kids. If you look at the last 10 big albums it might seem ironic. But when I look at the history of this music it's always had a lot of positivity.
I learned to MC over drum 'n' bass music.
I remember Bumpy Knuckles came in wearing all mink everything and said, 'Yo, when I spit my verse, I gotta pull my guns out and aim them.' He was serious! I told him that I was going to duck in the event that those guns accidentally went off. He pulled out the twin glocks, spit his verse in one take and said, 'I've got a meeting to go to' and left!
Kanye and T.I. both engage with what I'm doing.
