Rap Quotes

You have film actors doing TV, rap stars doing TV, with everyone kind of crossing the line.

Rap actually comes out of punk rock, not black music.

I haven't done rap... I can't do that too well.

I know some very political people who rap, and they say very political things and they'll never get a deal.

Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride.

Rap culture is interesting and different and has purpose but it has a non-romantic view of life and of social feelings. There may be a void in that.

One of the fun things as an actor is to find a character that if you were to look up a rap sheet about them, you might say, 'I don't really necessarily want to hang out with this guy' or 'I would never be this kind of guy in my life.' I think it's part of an actor's job to say, 'Maybe you could be.'

A lot of rap songs don't usually have a lot of melody per se.

I'm at a point where I don't have to wait for the income from the record to survive, so I'm in a comfortable zone, but I'll make rap records as long as I feel I have something to rap about.

Imagine the first time you are about to rap in a studio and you find yourself in a booth with Redman and KRS!

Violence is a part of America. I don't want to single out rap music. Let's be honest. America's the most violent country in the history of the world, that's just the way it is. We're all affected by it.

There's so much that I want to do. I feel like I'm the Magic Johnson of rap. You know, Magic was great on the basketball court, but he's bigger as a businessman.

Rap is always evolving. It's easy for the old school to hate the new school, but it's a music that got a little stifled I think, by the Internet a little bit.

Well unfortunately I didn't work with Andre much. But rap is a strong presence in the culture and anyone is going to grateful for its appearance, grateful for any kind of music that has the kind of effect that rap has had on us all.

Look at music: I've always loved hiphop and rap, and now there's this whole progressive movement, with De La Soul and Mos Def, Common. It's some of the best stuff around.

I feel like I was the only person who was capable of making this type of music in this type of way. I don't rap like nobody, I don't try to sound like nobody.

What I'm trying to do is break the genre from what is rap and what is music.

We grew up listening to alternative music from the '90s, and there was no shame in being on a major label and still making the music you wanted to make. I feel like rap rock came around and drew a line in the sand, and everybody that was like me ran away from that and started making indie-rock.

I was mostly surprised by the rap artists, actually, that were influenced by Sabbath. That was a surprise. But it's very nice and I'm very honored. It's nice to know after 27 years now that what I said in the first place has stuck, and that was the belief in it.

A lot of times black folks look for love in all the wrong places. You're always looking for somebody to love you, be accepted, and there's the insecurities that are even transmitted through rap. Everyone is trying to aim to please too much.

I don't rap like nobody, I don't try to sound like nobody.

It's just that when you heard hip-hop, no matter where you were, it was a culture that kind of made you want to try to be part of it. Whether you thought you were an artist, whether you thought you could be a DJ, whether you thought you could breakdance, or whether you thought you could rap. It was the kind of culture that had a lot of open doors.

I have considered rap music stars, and there is one in my new book, Lovers and Players, and there is also a hip-hop music mogul who I think you will like a lot.

A lot of the younger kids now can rap, but they're scared of the crowd. Mastery of that stage is an MC. I don't know if you've seen any great MCs on stage but when you do it's like wow, this is more than the words to rhymes.

In rap music, even though the element of poetry is very strong, so is the element of the drum, the implication of the dance. Without the beat, its commercial value would certainly be more tenuous.

But, Eminem... No, I've loved rap for a long time, especially when it got out of its first period and became this gangsta rap, ya know this heavy rap thing? That's when I started to fall in love with it. I loved the lyrics. I loved the beat.

You have to come in on a professional level to make it, otherwise you just can't get into rap.

It's bad poetry executed by people that can't sing. That's my definition of Rap.

A lot of the stuff I've accumulated over the last few years of touring I thought was really interesting. Like sounds, sound bites, and beats even, but they weren't good dance beats they weren't ones anyone would want to rap over or anything.

If I could rap, that would be a sensation, but I can't, you see, I'm just a Caucasian.