I appreciate Drake's music, I appreciate Future's music, I appreciate Lil Durk's music. I appreciate Uzi, Meek Mill, I appreciate Migos.
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."
I like Biggie. Like 'Pac, he was one of the best rappers in the business. Why would I try to do something to him?
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.
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 started rapping when I was about 12 or 13, just playing around with it.
Sometimes, I make 50 songs and pick out the best 10. I've been in the studio all day, all night, making the beat, writing the raps. You never know what's gonna be a hit.
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.
Biggie is my favorite rapper, for sure. No other artist has impacted me that much.
I always wrote poems when I was a little girl, and I loved hip hop music, and I kind of just started writing poems over beats, and that's when I started rapping.
I give the niggaz what they came to see, a reflection of one self where they aim to be.
I'm usually bored with both gangsta rappers and underground ones, too.
I think rap in the street when they have rap competitions is thrilling because these kids are making it up and having a go at each other. They've got something to say. This is about getting their frustrations out.
Earlier in our country, rapping was not considered as a proper art form, as it is not a song. But now, incorporation of rap in Bollywood songs, is giving rappers a chance to show their talent and it is coming to the mainstream.
I just love working with Eminem. He's just one of my favorite rappers, and his lyrics - he's a true poet, and I enjoy that about him.
Public Enemy is the security of the hip-hop party.
I must say, I've been in the studio with Jay Z, dog... I thought the freestyle thing was a myth. But, bro!
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 didn't want to be a rapper full time. You know, Big L kinda - God bless the dead - influenced me to do that.
I'm the first rapper ever popping his collar.
When Slick Rick first hit the scene, I had to practice that British accent. There's no other storyteller like this man.
When I started listening to rap music, I loved the fact that there were stories being told in 16 bars.
Nothing has more words and performance than rap music.
I feel like my lyrics are just dark and scathing. I feel like the lyrics on 'Darkest Before Dawn' are uncompromised hip-hop and really speaking to my core fan base. Basically what's been known in my discography the entire time.
