When I got my first guitar, I played along with everything I heard that had guitar in it, like the Ramones, Nirvana and Sublime, as well as whatever hip-hop and R&B stuff was on the radio.
I think when people say 'real hip-hop,' they want it more buried in the streets. They want it more connected to the streets and the grime and the roughness of the streets. They don't want the fluff.
No, I'll stay Ice-T. This is what got me here, I'm always going to stay true to that. If it weren't for hip-hop I wouldn't be doing all these other things.
All I can say is that I've had too many people in the hip-hop industry really like what I'm doing. I know where I'm coming from, and the album speaks for itself.
'Nothin' on You' by B.o.B was the first song where I heard myself on the radio. I'd been trying my whole career to write a song like that, which incorporates live instruments with hip-hop and singing.
The thing about hip-hop today is it's smart, it's insightful. The way they can communicate a complex message in a very short space is remarkable.
Wrestling has grown so big... it's almost a culture. And it's a culture of all types of vibes, just like hip-hop has all kinds of vibes and rap has all kinds of vibes.
People are used to seeing kids jump around. You know, the target audience, the audience that's spending money on music, like rock and hip-hop - they're used to seeing people get really physically involved in their music.
My goal the whole time has been for people to see me as a stand-alone artist. I came out with Young Money, the biggest hip-hop label in the world at the time. And then it was, 'How do I branch away from Lil Wayne?'
I did a couple songs with this hip-hop guy named Tim Dark. He was working in the same studio I've been working in, he heard my music and he said, aw man, I've got to do something with you.
I have pretty ecumenical tastes. I'm interested in a lot of different kinds of music, so I don't listen with a jaundiced ear to music because it's in a certain category, whether it's country or opera or hip-hop or bebop or whatever it is.
But the idea of taking things and mixing them together is what I do in my music. I take hip-hop, R&B, pop, dance, funk and soul and mix it all together to get my own sound.
I could hear music playing in the background of works by certain authors, like Poe and Shakespeare. And I discovered Nikki Giovanni when I was in eighth grade. Her writing has a musical energy with pulse and rhythm, almost like jazz or hip-hop.
I know that people everywhere listen to hip-hop, but especially being from the South, you really get that influence. You go out, you party, and it's just always there. Also, I grew up listening and loving reggae music, too.
As a New Yorker you can't help but be proud of the fact that so much music and culture started here. Punk rock, jazz, hip-hop and house music started here, George Gershwin debuted 'Rhapsody in Blue' here; the Velvet Underground are from New York.
I heard Q-Tip on the Jungle Brothers' song 'The Promo.' It was very exciting. It was very new. The music and the culture around hip-hop was evolving. I think there's an emotional quality to their music and there's a vulnerability to the music. For me...
When 'Raw Like Sushi' came out in the U.S., I wasn't considered to be black enough. They didn't really know where to put me. The music wasn't 'black black' sounding. It wasn't R&B; it wasn't straight up hip-hop, although obviously in that dimension a...
I think there's a lot of the hip-hop crowd behind Barack Obama because he's a black man. Honestly, I'm rooting for Hillary because race is only going to go so far. All the presidents are men at the end of the day.
I'm not saying that hip-hop needs gay rappers or anything, but they need to stop being so close-minded because that will just cause the genre to fail. Look at pop. Pop doesn't discriminate against people. Look at Lady Gaga, y'know what I mean?
As a hip-hop artist who likes fashion, who can't help but notice people like Kanye West, Tiger, Big Sean and definitely T.I.P. These guys really understand how to be progressive and fashion forward.
I moved to New York - I attended NYU, did a BFA in Acting at NYU. I was really into hip-hop, so I started battling, like '8 Mile.' I used to rap battle.
