I consider myself kind of a reporter - one who uses words that are more like music and that have a choreography. I never think of myself as a poet; I just get up and write.
What a name! Was it love or praise? Speech half-asleep or song half-awake? I must learn Spanish, one of these days, Only for that slow sweet name's sake.
My songs are somewhere between story and situation. There's also character and mood. I'm an intuitive writer, both with instrumentals and songs with words.
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.
I feel like I can make records where, you know, I can get in the alley and exchange bars with Styles P, but I can also get in the studio and create a classic with Rihanna.
My approach to writing rhymes went hand in hand with the music. I'd try to make different rhythms with my rhymes on the track by tripping up patterns, using multi-syllable words, different syncopations. I'd try to be like a different instrument.
I actually hate lyrics, and I hate it when they're quoted in reviews. I don't think they matter that much; it's the sounds of words - not the words - that I look for.
Songs come to me and I hear them. At least in part, they are very complete; I hear the whole chorus, including the drum pattern, the base, the countermelody, the basic harmonic structure and the main thrust of the lyric.
Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance... poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.
I'm trying to make the poems as musical as I can - from the inception. So that whether they're read on the page, or people read them aloud, or I read them aloud, the musicality will be kind of a given.
Nas was a huge influence. That's probably my favorite rapper of all time.
Lil Wayne, that was one of my main influences, music-wise, because of his wordplay and metaphors.
Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
Hip hop has always been braggin' and boasting and 'I'm better at you than this' and 'I'm better at you than that.'
A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects.
I learned to MC over drum 'n' bass music.
I never knew anything about rapping.
Rap - it's a childhood passion. Writing rhymes, it's something that I was doing before rap records even existed. And I will continue to write until I can't write anymore.
My style of songwriting is influenced by cinema. I'm a frustrated filmmaker. A fan once said to me, 'Girl, you make me see pictures in my head!' and I took that as a great compliment. That's exactly my intention.
If you listen to the old Rock I always had one tone of rapping, but now I'm learning how to stretch out my voice and use it in different ways.
I don't really write. I'm an on-the-spot type of person. This beat, let's listen to it; let's vibe. And then I'll do a melody, and then we'll go back and do it.
Some MCs don't take the time to take a beat home or just vibe with it and just figure out, 'How do I attack this track?'
Rap is something you can just throw on the skillet and fry up real quick. That's how it comes to me, my train of thought. It's like getting dressed - I don't have to sit down and stare at clothes, I just pick what I like and put it on. But rock, you gotta put it in the oven and let it bake.
When I'm writing, I'm thinking about how the songs are going to play live. Fifty bars of rap don't translate onstage. No matter how potent the music, you lose the crowd. They want a hook; they want to sing your stuff back to you.
Rap is very competitive. I just think I'm light years better than anybody.
