People told me that Miley's '23' wasn't hip-hop. Let me tell you, she went in and owned that track.
I'm really into, like, characters - music characters like Sid Vicious and Kurt Cobain - just, like, how they are and stuff. Like Lil Wayne.
Honestly, a lot of pop records have beatboxing. Timbaland beatboxes on his tracks. Justin Timberlake beatboxes.
I could never say Rza's trash. But he didn't come with the right formula on '8 Diagrams.' I think 'Cuban Linx 2' will have the Clan back where they need to be, but then it's up for the Clan to be back where they need to be, too. 'Cos it ain't just the album, you know what I mean? It's everything.
Nas was a huge influence. That's probably my favorite rapper of all time.
At the time I learned drums, I wanted to be the drummer of Hanson. I wanted to be this guy because he was so young, and he was already drumming in the band, you know, so I just wanted to be like him. And later, I discovered hip-hop music at boarding school.
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.
Ghostface, when it comes to hip-hop, was one of my favorite rappers and definitely one of my favorites in the Wu-Tang. He's also a really cool dude.
I'm really like a rat in the rap game. I just drop stuff when I feel like it.
Oh man, I think Damian Lillard makes good music. He has bars.
When I was up in New York, the first record my parents bought me was the Terror Squad record with 'Lean Back.'
Snoop Dogg and T-Pain, to me, are like legends so it's like, any time you get to work with a legend like that, it's cool.
I grew up listening to a lot of emo music, a lot of rock music, a lot of rap music, a lot of trap music, funk, everything.
I like Kanye and Kendrick Lamar.
Three 6 Mafia have been around for a long time; we've made a lot of music. Anybody's music can influence anybody. I've heard people say that our music has influenced such and such, and it could be true, and it could not.
When I first heard 'Pearly Gates' by Mobb Deep and 50 Cent growing up, the rapper Prodigy had a line about wanting to beat Jesus up. I wasn't religious, but I'd never been introduced to something like that. I was scared and mad, but then I asked why I felt like that.
I love Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, and Miguel.
I love classical. I have a lot of, like, Bach and Mozart and stuff. Then you flip on over, and I've got, like, Kanye West and, you know, just a bunch of - I am very eclectic. I love every sort of music.
The day Obama got into office, rap was less important because Obama gave kids an alternative. But will rap ever go away? No. There will always be a need for poets.
I always try to pick and choose projects that will be impactful to someone. From films like 'Clockers' to playing a doctor on 'ER' to doing '8 Mile,' where I'm in charge of the hip-hop battles, I think it affects all kinds of different audiences. And I just try to keep that in mind, to keep people entertained.
I think I'm influenced a lot by Drake in specific ways in my writing.
I grew up listening to Bob Marley, Jill Scott, Floetry, Nas, Jay-Z, Beyonce.
This was early '90s and in New York hip-hop was coming on really strong; that was the sort of urban folk music that was almost threatening to eclipse rock music and indie rock music in terms of popularity, which it has certainly gone on to do. But you know, this is the end of the 1980s, beginning of the '90s. The whole independent label thing has really evolved to this incredible point from the early '80s when we started, and there wasn't one record label at all, until a couple people started forming these small labels.
I'm kind of like a folk singer mixed with soul, but I feel like if you really are a lover of hip-hop music, make the beat banging as possible and then put the message in so that people get the honey with the medicine.
I'm a kid from New York, so urban life reflected into art and music was around me and accessible and tangible.
