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.
My problem is I don't have this incredible, hip image. I'm not some flamboyant or gorgeous-looking guy who's going to sell records based on his image.
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.
When I learned to play music, I was listening to blues music. And all the blues music I liked was super simple and stripped down. And then all the hip hop I liked was super simple and stripped down and we always heard that connection.
Hip hop is the new rock n' roll, you know what I mean? And anybody who doesn't think that is just sort of living in the past. It's all just American music, really, when you get right down to it.
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.
Mix-tapes are something that have been going on for a while. They've been pretty important to hip-hop for the past 10 years. It's the way we advertise our music to the public for free.
Hip-hop went through different stages, from the beginning in the streets of the Bronx, to the whole Tri-State area and then to the rest of the United States and the rest of the world.
I've been a hip hop head forever. So when it turned out that we were gonna start getting celebrity guests for every show, I wanted rap guys from the get-go.
We play a hip-hop song and suddenly 25 people on the left jump up and put their hands in the air; then you play Lost Cause and they're like, I don't know about this one.
Come on get higher, Loosen my lips ... Faith and desire and the swing of your hips Just pull me down hard, and drown me in love ..
If blues culture had developed under the conditions of oppressive, forced labor, hip-hop culture would arise from the conditions of no work
