I rap about Memphis and what a dangerous spot that is.
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.
I don't like rap that you can't understand. The youth is so quick and alert.
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.
This rap game is just WWF; everybody wants points off somebody else.
Rap is poetry set to music. But to me it's like a jackhammer.
I'd like to do a completely off-the-wall collaboration. I would like one of my songs to be the hook to a rap song. That would be so much fun!
As long as I'm around the cats in the hip hop scene, they'll throw me a track and I'll write a rap over it.
While also, importantly, not wanting to dumb it down or pretend the days of 'difficult' poetry are over, because we live in a pluralist culture and there's room for 'difficult' poetry alongside rap and everything else. And poetry won't be for everyone, but everyone should have the choice.
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?
When I first used Auto-Tune, I never used it to sing. I wasn't using it the way T-Pain was. I used it to rap because it makes my voice sound grittier.
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.
To have so many years in the rap industry and so many number one songs, and sold so many millions of records, introduced the world to people like Cool & Dre, DJ Khaled, Pitbull, Rick Ross, Trick Daddy, Remy Ma, Big Pun, Rico Love... I could go on and on. Having been able to influence the rap game for so long is very important to me.
I always have been an entertainer, whether it's been joking or performing for people. And I always thought I had a talent, because I could rap and I could sing, and I did write. And all the other kids were going to college, but I just felt like I had to do this first, and if it didn't work, then I would go to college.
Rap is rhythm and poetry. Hip-hop is storytelling and poetry as well.
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.
I think it's a mistake where rap music is these days. It doesn't seem to be able to look out of the ghetto and that's ultimately unfortunate, because it defines our limitations.
I've probably wanted to be a rapper since I was a teenager. I was an actor and comedian and stuff, but I always wanted to rap, it was another outlet.
I never tried to emulate that New York rap style. What I do is a quasi rap. It's a honky rap, not a black rap. I find it puzzling that so many people have assumed I'm black.
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.
Everybody in the '80s, well, we hate rap. Now, the biggest rapper in the world... Eminem. Rap's a black thing.
I always felt that rap didn't cause crime; it just reflected it.
I enjoy staying home with friends more than going out. The other night, for example, my girlfriends and I stayed in listening to some '90s rap - my favorite kind. We were in the Hamptons and made it an all-Biggie weekend, all of his albums on repeat. I loved it.
I tell people that the Clipse were the first Internet rap darlings.
It would be pretty funny to see a Beverly Hills white girl with mad rap skills.
The rap community has been singled out as more homophobic than other groups, but I don't think that's right. It's homophobic, all right, but no more so than the heavy-metal community or the Hollywood community or any other community.
Rap is a gimmick, but I'm for the hip-hop, the culture.
There's definitely some parallels between me and Joaquin Phoenix, I think. The line gets so blurry. My rap career wasn't a hoax, but it was absolutely intended to be a joke. The problem was that I really was on a quest to somehow be a Caucasian Ol' Dirty Bastard.
There's no way I can compete with someone who can write rap or rock and roll. Nor do I wish to. But I've always kept up to date with music changes. I worked very hard not to type myself.
Hackney gets a bit of a bad rap, but it's the only place I've ever lived that felt like a community. I know my neighbours.
I know some very political people who rap, and they say very political things and they'll never get a deal.
What I'm trying to do is put back into rap music what's missing - which is the good part, the fun part, that party part.
In rap, as in most popular lyrics, a very low standard is set for rhyme; but this was not always the case with popular music.
Being young and female in America, you watch a lot of T.V., and you grow up on false images of what love truly is. We think the man with the best rap will protect and save us, about it's not usually that way. Then you learn love is something deeper and purer in form.
I don't want to rap about my car. How generic is that? Be creative.
I don't rap like nobody, I don't try to sound like nobody.