Rap Quotes

I listen to all the top 20 songs, and top 20 albums, even the rap albums. But I don't like negative messages. If somebody is putting a lot of ego out there, I don't like it. When I make my records I want it to be sincere.

I don't want to rap about my car. How generic is that? Be creative.

Everybody in the '80s, well, we hate rap. Now, the biggest rapper in the world... Eminem. Rap's a black thing.

Personally, I just think rap music is the best thing out there, period. If you look at my deck in my car radio, you're always going to find a hip-hop tape; that's all I buy, that's all I live, that's all I listen to, that's all I love.

The writing process, the way I go about it is I do whatever the beat feels like, whatever the beat is telling me to do. Usually when the beat comes on, I think of a hook or the subject I want to rap about almost instantly. Within four, eight bars of it playing I'm just like, 'Oh, OK. This is what I wanna do'.

I looked at the rap community like street kids wanting their own brand. But now I look at that period with the rappers in the 90s as a trend of the moment. What it taught me was never to follow a trend, because trends move on.

I was a metalhead and then I was into the rap and then I was a metalhead again.

Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.

I would say that I'm more moved by melody, even though I love to rap.

I think that rap is narrative, when it's done right.

We have groups that do that, but I can't rap with the mentality of an 18 year old when I'm in my 30's.

Rap actually took root in the Negro community, and then in the Hispanic community, long before it impacted on the larger American community as a whole.

Racism is taught in the home. We agree on that? Well, it's very hard to teach racism to a teenager who's listening to rap music and who idolizes, say, Snoop Dogg. It's hard to say, 'That guy is less than you.' The kid is like, 'I like that guy, he's cool. How is he less than me?

I don't even listen to rap. My apartment is too nice to listen to rap in.

If I have a rap album I'm dropping, then I want it to be the best rap album.

When you've been raised in care, rap music isn't just about guns and sexism. They're talking about real things you can hang on to, problems of identity that you have sympathy with. It's not just about the music, with rap: when I was in care, it meant a whole lot more than that.

Why shouldn't rap be esoteric, able to take in current events, history and criticism? I guess it's this old idea of containment - that rappers, because they're black, can't and shouldn't aspire to look outside the ghetto for influence.

That's why I called my record Devil Without a Cause - I'm a white boy who's so sick of hearing that white kids are going to steal rap.

I love my city and I feel like the majority of the people that are in the city are people from other cities. So I think that L.A. sometimes might get a bad rap because it's known to be so Hollywood-oriented and then underneath that you have crime. But that's really the case in pretty much any major city that you go to.

I'm just basically spillin' out my emotions to the world. 'Cause rap is about emotion. And I want you to feel what I'm feelin', 'cause that's what it's all about.

I have periods where I listen to regular rap, Jay-Z, Eminem and Lil Wayne. The next day I might have some Christian alternative music. The next day I have on some dance music. It all varies what I listen to.

I don't like the fact that there are so few women in rap.

The biggest rap on me is that I don't find a Watergate every couple of years. Well, Watergate was unique. It's not something Carl Bernstein, I, or the Washington Post caused.

When I first got into the rap game, I had an early dream of unifying rappers.

Government workers often get a bad rap, but it's rare for them to receive much appreciation when government works.

I'm a tremendous believer and supporter in hip-hop and rap.

I don't feel that rap has been respected as an art form. Because people have seen rappers rap off the top of their heads, they don't think it is difficult.

The whole world has changed much since the '80's. In the united States, rap music and country music dominate radio and that certainly wasn't the case in the early '80's.

Back in the day, if someone said that hip hop and rap was a fad, that was a joke to me because they just didn't know what they were talking about. In reality, there were so many people who didn't know what they were talking about it.

It would be pretty funny to see a Beverly Hills white girl with mad rap skills.