It's not for me to determine what a country artist has in common with a hip-hop artist. You go for those with long-lasting careers. And that's what I've had as my target all my life.
Rock is periodically pronounced dead by clear rock critics - killed by world music, or by hip-hop, or electronica, or the Backstreet Boys. But if you wait a year, it comes back to life.
Reggae was always a passion of mine. I used to say in interviews that I would love to do a reggae album. But it consumed my life being a hip-hop artist and being Heavy D, which I'm happy and proud of.
Most people have a blank slate and can start from nothing. But for me, I had to break a bad habit that I've been doing all of my life, which is freestyle hip-hop.
I love all types of music. I love top 40 dance pop, hip-hop, I don't even know what they call it now. I'm a huge fan of all that.
In hip-hop, there's not a lot of love. There's not a lot of love being spread. It's always like 'I'm stuntin' on you raps, or I'm better than you raps.' It's not a lot of 'Yo man, I idolize you raps.'
When I say a spoken Hebrew sentence, half of it is like the King James Bible and half of it is a hip-hop lyric. It has a roller-coaster effect.
I didn't really grow up on hip-hop. Ella Fitzgerald and the old school jazz divas are more my comfort zone.
My first Grammy wasn't even in a jazz category, but of course I was really excited. 'Rockit' was the beginning of kind of a new era for the whole hip-hop movement.
Before I got into stand-up, I used to be a hip-hop dancer in a crew, and my name was J. Smoove, and my partner was J. Groove.
I may be able to concentrate on a move, but it may not look exactly how I need it to look like, as far as in the ballroom world. Hip-hop is different; it is a lot more flowy with ballroom.
I equally love both, classic rock and hip-hop. I love all music, really, and I really use classic rock a lot. I'm heavily influenced by that melodically in my music. I can't really separate the two.
It's hard for a liberal to go on between Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, because it's like doing country music after hip-hop. I mean, just, the audience doesn't go from one to the other.
My opinion is that music is music. As long as you approach doing a remix with truth, I don't see the dance remixes being any different than an hip-hop remix- it's really a different version of the song.
I listen to all those kinds of music, from classic soul to hip-hop to Brazilian music to, you know, jazz to indie to alternative. So whatever. I listen to all if it. Classic rock and classic pop, all of that.
I consider music to be storytelling, melody and rhythm. A lot of hip-hop has broken music down. There are no instruments and no songwriting. So you're left with just storytelling and rhythm. And the storytelling can be so braggadocious, you're just l...
I'm someone that examines culture and tries to break down why things are the way that they are whether its hip-hop music, sex, race, or consumerism. I try to examine it and scrutinize it to the point where I can write a song.
I think that hip-hop has done what it was supposed to have done, which is it defied all the laws of what is statistically a music genre and what statistically is not a music genre. Because it wasn't supposed to be here.
Soul music is soul music. It can be wrapped up in a neo soul package; it can be called hip-hop soul. But soul is soul, and it's been around; it will never go away.
I was the only punk rocker at my high school. And there were at least a handful of black kids who liked hip-hop. Both were kind of the new music of the day, and it was lonely being the only punk.
You've got to be true to who you are and what you do. I'm more of a hip-hop feel person. Music is how you feel. The younger the mind, that's how I wanna be.
