Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Hip hop - it's an art form but it's a culture as well. You grow up in the culture and you never leave it. It's a style of dress; it's a way of thought. I always grew up in the culture, and it was part of who I was and I carried it into every world I was in.
You know, my era of DJing was the 90s. I think that was one of the best eras of music, period. From dancehall to hip hop to rock to pop to R&B to everything. I just like that era of music, so I just listen to a lot of 90s overall but definitely 90s hip hop.
I feel money is power in certain senses. A lot of women out there are just givin' it away. And then there are the women that're selling their bodies. But they chose to do that. But this is how they make their money. And I don't see anything wrong with that.
We need to make sure that there's art in the school. Why? Why should art be in the school? Because if art isn't in a school, then a guy like Steve Jobs doesn't get a chance to really express himself because in order for art to meet technology, you need art.
Songs that aren't even remotely connected to Christmas are now officially canonized Christmas tunes. 'Frosty the Snowman,' 'Jingle Bells' and 'Winter Wonderland' never mention anything religious but are still notches in Christmas' belt of musical dominance.
I talk about Africa and its meaning, being the birthplace of man and all that great history that's been erased and even hidden. I think it's my duty to be proud and to bring about the conversation that allows us to talk about the great history of my people.
Being broke and being in the street does not mean that you're keeping it real. I think that everybody that lives in a non-wealthy neighbourhood spends their time and energy trying to do everything they can to better their living standards. I'm no different.
I ain't the captain of the yacht, but I'm on the boat; I ain't acting what I'm not, knowing that I don't. You niggaz acting like you will, but I know you won't. Man, I read between the lines of the eyes of your brows, Your handshake ain't matchin your smile.
I don't make my music for just me or a few people. Hopefully everybody that makes music wants to be embraced by the people they tryna make it for, you know what I'm saying. It's just a matter of time before everybody gets the message that I'm tryna send out.
You know, it's nothin' quick overnight. If anything happens to you quick, you need to start questioning that. You know, you hear young people go, aw, I'm gonna blow up. You gonna blow up but with a controlled explosion. Don't just blow up all over the place.
Surface R&B doesn't work any more. The whole heartthrob thing, songs about unrealistic love and tearing your shirt off every show - that's not really where it's at any more. It's becoming harder for those guys to sell records, and harder for them to succeed.
My mom and dad divorced when I was 8 years old, but my Dad never left my life. We would go over there on weekends and he'd be playing his guitar, listening to Bobby Blue Bland and B. B. King and KBLX radio while he was out in the garage painting custom cars.
Jeezy just recognized my grind, and I jumped on board with him to enhance it. Artistically, we're in the same mind frame. We come from very similar backgrounds - poverty. That's something that we can both relate to, something that we can convey in our music.
The most important thing in writing process is the vibe cause if you on a roll, if you feel it you just feel it. And it's all about the atmosphere, the people around you, you know, everything. You got to be clear headed in that and have a perfect atmosphere.
Every once in a while, I hear somebody call me Tracy to try to let me know that they know me, you know, personally. But most of my real friends will call me Trey, or 'Ice' was basically short for Iceberg. So they would call me - some of my boys call me Berg.
Just because I choose to question religion doesn't mean that I'm spitting in God's face; it's the opposite. I'm tired of people spitting in God's face. I'm tired of seeing these divisions over a different type of Christianity, over a different type of Islam.
When you listen to old-school music, you can smell your mother's food in the kitchen. You can feel where you was when you first heard that song. That's what's beautiful about music. It's for everyone, but we all have individual memories that make us love it.
I used to get stressed out all the time when I thought winning was important. I wanted to try to win and help my kids win. Once I figured out it wasn't about winning or losing, it was about teaching these kids about being men, that's when I started to relax.
There's gon' be some stuff you gon' see that's gon' make it hard to smile in the future. But through whatever you see, through all the rain and the pain, you gotta keep your sense of humor. You gotta be able to smile through all this bullshit. Remember that.
My thing is, I don't get in nobody's business or nothing like that or try to bash anybody for what they do. I've got cousins who are gay. To me, there's just no difference. We always chill and have family functions the way we always have. It's not a problem.
If I were a painter, I would paint beautiful bodies - I would paint nipples, and I would paint Bibles. Am I going to say, 'I'm not going to paint this woman's neck because people will think I just want to lick on necks?' Please! That's not what art is about.
I'm going to be a fashion icon in a minute. I'm not going to do it in a corny manner. I have a voice that speaks for a whole other market - not just black people, but high fashion urban people. I mix street wear with high fashion. It's never been seen before.
I think a lot of people feel like they still have something to prove, because when you get in and you're chasing success, you always feel like you have something to prove. But at this point, I feel like an underdog, and I actually like being in that position.
I love seeing people react to my music. Its like a drug, one of the strongest drugs ever in my opinion. Not that I'Â’m doing drugs.. I just love that feeling. Putting out a feeling and having it really be the one is more addicting than anything in my life now.
That's basically the gangster code. Just be yourself. Just be you, dog. The easiest way to get your card plucked around a gangster is to be a fake. If we feel like you're trying too hard, if you're trying to act like you're from the street, you're in trouble.
I think that when you look at history and when you look at these facts that shape nations and shape countries and give us present examples of how we're supposed to live, we find more and more often that we're not paying attention to what's actually happening.
Power always becomes consolidated back into the hands of very few people... whether they be an economic aristocracy, a royalty, a monarchy which is the most concentrated form of oligarchy where it depends on one King who is ordained supposedly by God to rule.
I want to motivate people because I know how it is, struggling, and coming from a place where you have nothing. So my thing is to motivate people to let them know whatever you put your mind to, or whatever you love to do, then stick with it and don't give up.
I collect art, and I drink wine... things that I like that I had never been exposed to. But I never said, 'I'm going to buy art to impress this crowd.' That's just ridiculous to me. I don't live my life like that, because how could you be happy with yourself?
You expect certain things. You build up in your mind how it's supposed to go down. When you get a record deal, you think you're supposed to get X, Y, and Z. It doesn't happen like that. You're like 'Oh, this isn't as exciting as I thought it was going to be.'
Business, endorsements and things of that nature, I got into it kinda naturally. Those ventures materialised as a direct result of things that I was actually doing; all the partnerships have been organic and not necessarily etched out plans for monetary gain.
As an entrepreneur, as an investor, I'm trying to be as educated as I can to where the progression of technological capability is going and what it does to these different categories that, me as an artist and an influencer, I can get involved and bring value.
The aggressiveness of it attracted me to hip-hop because I was angry inside. I was an angry kid because of the sickle cell. So I liked the anger in hip-hop. That's what attracted me to it; that's what made me want to do it. It helped me get my aggression out.
I'm really big on family. I'll love catching up with my cousins. Everyone's in their twenties, so they're all on their grind at the moment, but when we get the time, I'll fly everybody to Amsterdam or Ibiza, and we can just hang for a week, chill, do nothing.
As a believer, the Lord is growing me every single day. I'm married and I'm really grateful for my wife. The Lord has been using her to make me more like Jesus. I have a son and I'm really grateful for that. I'm grateful for what the Lord is doing in my life.
I finally understand / for a woman it ain't easy tryin to raise a man / You always was committed / A poor single mother on welfare, tell me how ya did it / There's no way I can pay you back / But the plan is to show you that I understand / You are appreciated
I didn't introduce thug life to America. Thug life is America. I don't get why the whole world is fearing me. I am scared, but so are they. It's like I am having a panic attack cause I have 15,000 people wanting to do what I want, listing to everything I say.
I'm definitely inspired by Michael Jackson. I watch all his videos all the time. And Busta Rhymes, early Busta Rhymes - I really was inspired by him. He's really the reason why I started rapping. Because all his visuals. I loved his videos when I was younger.
Death Row had a lot of artists. They had Snoop, the Dogg Pound, the Lady of Rage, and there was other artists that was also on the label, so it was a big list and a long wait. I didn't want to wait that long, so I started branching off and doing my own thing.
I met a gypsy and she hipped me to some life game, To stimulate, then activate the left and right brain. Said, 'Baby boy, you only funky as your last cut. You focus on the past, your ass'll be a has-what.' That's one to live by, or either that's one to die to.
Musically, I'm always gonna take it a little farther, and Lord willing, people are gonna get that and understand that: that there's not really one genre I'm trying to be in, but just as a producer, as a writer, as an artist, that I'm planning on going farther.
I'll step in an airport just now, and people will recognize me. I'm in Harlem on 144th and whatever, and people are coming up to me like, "What's up, Chamillionaire?" And seeing it grow is, nothing turning into something, that feeling is a really good feeling.
If you look at companies like Twitter, Google, all these companies started with ideas and then everybody used it. In my world, people don't think like that. Rappers chase the next check. They become a slave to labels and eventually that money starts shrinking.
A visit to the hood through a record, or through a video, or through a film, is a lot safer than actually visiting the people in real life. It became a business model. It became a revenue engine that, you know, you can get to the hood without ever going there.
Coming from Morocco was just different, man. It's a third-world country, and you are trying to make it happen. That's all it is. I didn't have any problem hooking up with the black kids because I'm from North Africa. And as far as Latinos, we are all the same.
If the white folks feel America is great for everybody, I don't want to change what they love. All I want is to bring my love and respect in the areas of law, policy, business, and banking. That's what I do when I do my extremely rare lectures at universities.
I get on a real serious health kick when I'm on the road, because as a singer, you can't really get sick. If you get sick, your whole instrument stops working. I've done all these different vitamin drinks. I drink coconut water, and I run. I eat food. I juice.
I'll tell a young kid in a minute, 'If you don't know how to read, then what good is trying to be an MC?' Like, you can MC, but if you're not trying to be a better person, learn and apply that to your MCing, then how far do you think you're really going to go?
Back in the day, music imitated life. Now it's the opposite way around: life is imitating music. It's like whatever the rappers say, people think that that's how we're supposed to be; but back then, we kind of looked at the streets, and we made music for that.
However, today due to civil litigation funded by cults this option for families has been eliminated. Instead, the only form of cult intervention now practiced is voluntary-with the exception of minor children under the direct supervision of a custodial parent.