Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Glory be and praise to God. I didn't do any of this. God did. I don't have a recipe or a blueprint. I prayed for it, and my prayers are continuing to be answered.
It's such a phenomenon for a hip-hop artist to fully embrace his Christian roots and his faith. And that becomes something that people almost need you to justify.
My father being incarcerated for 25 years, 26 years, so I had a rough past, but me moving to Atlanta, I just thought that changed my whole identity - my thinking.
I just wanted to speak to the streets and give them motivation on making it out. Whatever situation they're in, know that they can make do and have a better life.
I wasn't really into music. I was into the streets. I was too worried about the streets and how I was going to eat and how I was going to make the streets happen.
I used to do this one club called New York Sound Factory where I played house, hip-hop, and dancehall. I was one of the first DJs in the South to play everything.
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'm addicted to something at all times. Like, it's always music, but maybe sometimes it's a pair of pants or something else. That's just how my personality works.
I was into acting as a kid. There was a time when I was 18 that I played the boy in a production of 'Equus' in Oregon, and I thought that was going to be my life.
Only one chance one bullet in the gun. This is my life and I only got one, yeah. The safety’s off and I put on her. Oh stick ‘em up, stick ‘em up. Ready to shoot.
I would say that the Nipsey Hussle 'Crenshaw' release was an example of All Money In creating an artificial scarcity campaign for the physical side of 'Crenshaw.'
People that's in power - the central banks, these fiat currencies that are traded globally - they got influence over the messaging and the narrative in the media.
Sometimes you can make a substantial amount of money and automatically think that you've made it, that you did everything you wanted to do. Some people just stop.
As a kid, my favorite adventures were to skip school and go into the sewage drains and talk to the turtles and open up packs of Topps Stadium Club baseball cards.
My first single I was nominated for a Grammy with 'Crank That,' and I lost a Grammy to Kanye West, but it was still such a big deal for me to be nominated anyway.
The only thing is, with me - this may sound weird - there are a lot of R&B singers from that era that I actually don't know. Like, I never grew up on Boyz II Men.
Imperfection is inherited, therefore we all sin, but fighting the war of sin is the greatest war of all because we all die in the end no matter how hard we fight.
I'm 100 percent original, and that's what got me here. My rap music is more understandable, slower. It tells a story. You can write a book on each of my thoughts.
Temperature is as far as the heat goes, people are haters cos im doing something good. Hate me dont hate the hood. It made me strong, you wouldn't last that long.
Mix-tapes are something that have been going on for a while. They've been pretty important to hip-hop. It's the way we advertise our music to the public for free.
Live shows are pretty much like the center of the storm... where the power comes from, the most raw experience. That's the juice. That's where we hit the hardest.
They say you're blessed to be a blessing to others. There's no better time to live that saying then the holidays. Especially when so many families are struggling.
I am yet to have a child, and if I am blessed with a baby girl, and in future, if a guy tries to impress my daughter by singing my hits, I have no issues with it.
My kids listen to everything because I listen to everything, so it's not far-fetched to hear them playing Metallica and then playing A Tribe Called Quest or N.W.A.
Because I'm short, I have a low center of gravity and I know how to use my weight. If I don't want nobody to pick me up, they can't. They'll catch a hernia trying.
With music, you've got to find ways to get paid again, 'cause all the cool kids in junior high school and high school, they think you're wack if you pay for music.
People are so confused about race and hip-hop that people didn't even consider the Beastie Boys one of the greatest rap groups of all time because they were white.
Some people buy records just to dance to 'em. Some people buy records to listen to the radio. And there's people that buy records 'cause they listen to every song.
The earliest music I remember hearing is Al Green's 'Let's Stay Together.' That was when my momma and my daddy were together, before they went their separate ways.
I have a thing - I call it magic - but I feel like I can write stuff down in the middle of the night and wake up and it happens. I write what I want in my journal.
When I came up in hip hop, there was no such thing as a Puerto Rican rapper doing hip hop for many mainstream people, so I was the ship, the captain, and the crew.
The hardest situation to pick up a girl in is ... in church and in Morocco on Ramadan. On Ramadan or one of those religious days? Try to pick up a girl is bananas.
I think my music is so personal that it lets people in. And they identify with me more because of that, you know, so it's like my story; it's who I am as a person.
I've been writing songs since I was 10 years old and always had a penchant for rhyming. I started listening to hip hop through my friends and fell in love with it.
If I do a song where I'm angry, when it's time to perform it live I'm not mad, I'm happy. I'm at a concert. But I have to somehow drum up that rage. That's acting.
Universal truth is not measured in mass appeal, This is the last time I kneel and pray to the sky, Cause almost everything that I was always ever told was a lie...
You should do what we do, stack chips like *Hebrews* Don't let the melody intrigue you (uh-uh) Cause I leave you, I'm only here For that green paper which lead you
When I come back like Jordan, wearing the 4-5. It ain't to play games with you, it's to aim at you, probably maim you. If I owe you I'm blowin' you to smithereens.
The day Obama got into office, rap was less important because Obama gave kids an alternative. But will rap ever go away? No. There will always be a need for poets.
No one came to our neighborhoods with stand-up jobs and showed us there's a different way. Maybe, had I seen different role models, maybe I'd've turned on to that.
I often yearn to regress into a state that's slightly more atavistic than my decades of conditioning generally allow, but it's difficult to let go of those reigns.
When I wake up in the morning, do I think I'm a role model? Yes. I'm not trying to have a pristine image, because a real role model shows you to the good and ugly.
College allows you to make better decisions, better friends, and a better future. There's only one catch: when the opportunity comes, you actually have to take it.
I don't wanna abandon my identity as LL Cool J, but at the same time, I had to figure out how to let people know that I'm really serious about making these movies.
I think, a lot of times, people just want to be cool, and to be in love is not cool. But I think it's the coolest. I think love is the coolest thing that there is.
I want to show little girls that the possibilities are endless. That's my goal - to not only do it for myself, but to show them I can do whatever I put my mind to.
I intend to inspire people with my story: motivate young people that grew up like myself, or even not like myself. Just, you know, go through the human experience.
Everything has a price... No matter if it's fortune, fame or your life. I understood later that it's all about paper, Everything has a fee in the land of the free.
Some of you been trying to write rhymes for years, But weak ideas irritate my ears. Is this the best that you can make? Cause if not, and you got more...I'll wait.
That's another thing yo rappers are scared to bring new styles out. There's so many different ways we can be flowing but everybody chooses to flow the generic way.