Anybody under the age of forty knows hip-hop, gospel and R&B pretty well, and it's all a part of what we consider to be 'black music.' There is a natural synergy between the three.
I'm fascinated by rap and by hip-hop. I think there's a lot of poetry in it. There's a lot of anger, a lot of social energy in it. And I think you'd better listen to it pretty carefully, 'cause it's important.
Hip-hop don't have no fresh energy, none at all. It's money driven, everybody tryin' to make that cheque, nobody putting art in their albums any more.
At the end of the day, you want to be always the one that's one step ahead of everybody, and when it comes to hip-hop, culture and art, you want to be that signature guy.
Being No. 1. It's talked about all of the time in hip-hop. 'I'm still No. 1! I'm the best! I'm the greatest of all time!' It's the same mentality in sports.
Award shows, like the Grammys, were tough on us early in hip-hop, not even televising our categories or splitting them up on best male or female or any of that. We had to earn them.
Hip-hop is so much about character and caricature that people just see you as a character. Very rarely are you flesh and bone to people.
Hip-hop is an instant gratification, winners and losers circle, and often those who are losing give up after three or four, five years.
If you really dissect hip-hop you will find a whole lot of Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Ahmad Jamal, a lot of classic jazz samples in there.
I'm probably not as big of a hip-hop fan as people may think. I'm not up on all the artists and know all their stuff.
I tour whether I have album out or not. I tour more than any other hip-hop artist.
A lot of hip-hop artists wear fur, and they think it's a status symbol. That doesn't register for me; I just see dead animals.
Dropkick Murphys get me going, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana... plus, all the regular hip-hop stuff.
I'm born and raised in Georgia, so I have a lot of appreciation for hip-hop, but I want to be able to show the emotional side of me.
I don't talk to media or anyone before games. I just put my headphones on, turn up some hip-hop, and get in the zone.
To its credit, hip-hop is my favorite genre, to this day, and it's hard not to be influenced by the culture and by the movement of it and by the soul of it.
From wrestling to my hip-hop thing, I've just been able to do so much and meet so many crazy characters.
Hip-hop and R&B is mostly what I listen to. I don't have a connection with punk rock - I just never had that experience.
I was a kid watching music videos, which were so cool and made me want to learn how to dance. I wish I could've gone to dance classes and learn, like, hip-hop dancing.
I want kids of this generation to see that everything is cool, that there's some kind of unity in hip-hop. We all found something that's really important to us, and music is all we've really got.
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.
