The original version of 'Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang' was made to a Boz Scaggs song; I can't remember the name of the song.
As far as rap goes, I grew up in Hollis, Queens, so early influences were people like Run DMC and LL Cool J.
Yeah, Travis Scott's dad taught me how to ride minibikes and how to repair the engines. His name's Jack Webster. Jack had a drum set and his brother had a bass. So I used to play with them, and that's what started me wanting to get into music and take it serious. And this is before rap.
What I want to do right now is give hip hop back to the hood. Before it was a neighborhood thing where it belonged to the hood and the rappers were reporting and there were rules and parameters. Now it seems like the artist's game.
I had some really early recordings when I was 16 or 17. I was rapping over jungle beats with my friends. We used to do pirate radio stations in my area, down near Brighton. They were pretty terrible.
I think people were genuinely addicted to hip hop in the 90s, addicted to the idea of empowerment. I think it came from [the fact that] the rappers in the 90s, their parents coming from the 70s, had such a rich variety of records to sample.
Few rappers realize the genre sprang from West African griots through Delta slave songs to jazz poetry and the comedic trash talk of 'the dozens.'
Rap was started by black people and, thus, is at the foundation of black culture. So people cannot always wrap their minds around someone like me being inspired by it. But if you listen to the things we're saying, they're authentically us.
Scandinavian rap started in the '90s, off the back of Run DMC, and it was a bunch of Swedish dudes doing the same thing.
My first rap name was Ralo. Because my first name is Carlos. I likened myself to what Busta Rhymes was doing when he first came out. And what Onyx did when they first came out - they reminded me of me.
Rap has always had a braggadocios flavour to it. That goes all the way back to 'Rapper's Delight.'
Rap actually comes out of punk rock, not black music.
It wasn't really me who invented rap. I stole the idea from Aristide Bruant.
It's mad to think I was just a kid from south London, rapping in parks with friends.
What a lot of people don't know is that Wyclef started off as a battle rapper, when he decided that he would rhyme.
People said that way back in the early days I was probably one of the first rappers; the reason is that I couldn't sing, so I had to talk! Lou Reed was probably the one who started it all.
