I'm not just a rapper. I'm an entertainer. That's the difference.
I wanted to write a book like a rapper would write it - I didn't want to hold back. Rappers catch a lot of slack; I'm not going to be cursing up a storm, but when I look at Nas... his first album is one of my favorites. I want to tell stories like that.
I'm pretty sure people thought I was like a dope rapper.
You can say what you want to about a rapper in a movie, but look at what Ice Cube has done. Ice Cube has created more opportunities for other actors to get jobs in this business than some actors have.
I'm an entertainer, so in whatever form I entertain... The thing about being a rapper is that you have more control over your form, whereas with acting you have to compromise a lot.
I'm not going to be like a rapper and mention the people I'm talking about in my songs by name.
My only scheme was to be a rapper.
When it's a rapper's album or a singer's album, there's a tendency to want a text-based or theme-based narrative.
I speak from the heart. Certain people follow lyricists and people that put words on a dictionary together, and this and that. I'm more of a rapper that speaks how I feel. I just tell it how it is.
I'm a huge fan of Big L. He is my favorite rapper.
On 'Old School,' I was not an actor, I was Snoop Dogg, so I came to the set with a whole different vibe, and a different crew of people. And on 'Starsky and Hutch,' I was more of an actor. I wasn't Snoop Dogg, the rapper.
I don't want to be considered 'the Latino rapper.'
I'm a singer who thinks like a rapper.
I'm mostly concentrating now on continuing to make history in Hip-Hop, making everybody proud of me, I'm not just a rapper now, I'm in history now.
I take chances. I don't limit myself. I don't think anybody who listens to Boston would have predicted hearing a female rapper on the beginning of the song 'Sail Away.' But that's what fit.
I think there are barriers, but I think for me specifically, my barrier is being rejected from the kind of hip-hop elitists that think I'm not appropriating it, but just not serious about it. They think I'm a Lonely Island, Weird Al, you know - like a parody rapper. So that alienates me from a lot of things.
I would not consider myself to be a quote unquote real New York rapper. I don't even like New York rappers.
I used to record but just in my own studio or in my friend's back when I toyed with the idea of being a rapper.
In the past it seemed like I was making fun of rap a little bit. But it was more me making fun of myself, since I'm not technically a rapper, whatever that means.
I grew up in the '90s. My goal isn't to be a '90s rapper, but I have little hints of '90s influence in my music. It's a modern approach to classic rap.
But, by just being myself, I end up touching a lot more people who might never have paid much attention to a female rapper.
I think the guy who has had the better films is Will Smith. I don't know if he's a better actor than me. I don't think so. I am a rapper first. Man, I just love what I do. I am just the greatest and I can't help it. I'm sorry man.
People always want to feel better and be inspired. Sometimes we need it. I think the conscious rapper will always be able to live and exist.
Everyone's supposed to stay in their lines and be neat. 'You're a rapper. You're supposed to rap, carry a boom box, wear chains, and go to the club - that's all you do. What are you doing collecting art? What are you talking about? Wait a minute, you're getting out of the zone.' People hate when people cross lines.
Some people say I'm conscious, some say I'm a gangsta rapper - it's just me doing me. I'm stomping in my own lane. I'm doing what I do.
You know it's going to hell when the best rapper out there is white and the best golfer is black.
I make soul music for hip-hop heads. It's music I'd want to sample if I were a rapper.
When I was a rapper, the groupies didn't have to try too hard with me. Just show up at the hotel.
You take the quote from Sam Jackson about how he'll never work with a rapper, and I can understand where he's coming from because he says rappers can't act.
I feel like a lot of people in the hip hop world don't take me seriously as a rapper, and I feel that first-and-foremost I came up as a rapper before I started singing. All a lot of people know from me is 'Cupid's Chokehold,' and they don't scratch the surface and see beyond that dude who sings the song about his girlfriend.
I used to be focused on being the dopest rapper in the game, and then once that became what I was, I wanted something different, and I wanted to become the best businessman in the game. I wanted to learn how to master the business like I mastered the rap.
The first splurge that I did, I bought, like, an $80,000 watch, but that's because I'm a rapper. I need jewelry.
I don't want to be a small-time, independent, successful rapper.
When Elton John sang a duet with the white rapper Eminem on a Grammy telecast, rap went mainstream. Massive parental headaches followed.
Chance The Rapper makes some of the greatest music out, and he build his brand up organically, and the fans have reacted to it.
I can rap in a London accent, make weird faces, wear spandex, wigs, and black lipstick. I can be more creative than the average male rapper.