From the moment I started writing raps, I was always aware of the pressure. I always wanted to live up to how huge Snoop got, how huge Dre got, how huge Pac got. I was always aware.
I've listened to Eminem rap. That's not daily fare for me, but I can't help but admire how vivid what he does is. My own taste goes a little more toward Norah Jones.
Being a student of hip-hop in general, you take technical aspects from places. You may take a rhyme pattern or flow from Big Daddy Kane or Kool G Rap.
When you're a little kid, you don't see color, and the fact that my friends were black never crossed my mind. It never became an issue until I was a teenager and started trying to rap.
Why shouldn't rap be esoteric, able to take in current events, history and criticism? I guess it's this old idea of containment - that rappers, because they're black, can't and shouldn't aspire to look outside the ghetto for influence.
A lot of the younger kids now can rap, but they're scared of the crowd. Mastery of that stage is an MC. I don't know if you've seen any great MCs on stage but when you do it's like wow, this is more than the words to rhymes.
A lot of the stuff I've accumulated over the last few years of touring I thought was really interesting. Like sounds, sound bites, and beats even, but they weren't good dance beats they weren't ones anyone would want to rap over or anything.
I'm into hip-hop, rap, country, blues, gospel, old school, new school... whatever... pop. If it's really good, I like it. I don't have to be told what to listen to. If I like it and it's good, I'll listen to it.
I don't dislike rappers or hip-hop or people who like it. I went to the Def Jam tour in Manchester in the '80s when rap was inspirational. Public Enemy were awesome. But it's all about status and bling now, and it doesn't say anything to me.
I came into the rap game in 1992; my life was changing, but my group wasn't successful; I also saw the biggest rappers in the world die all of a sudden in the ensuing years, so it was a matter of conquering yourself before you can conquer the world.
I tried to make a 'When Doves Cry' in a rap version. I used a lot of instruments and I broke it down like I thought Prince would do, and that's the song I sent to Big Boi.
We're feminists. We're doing something that only guys are expected to do and doin' it right! At our concerts we'll do one hard-core rap song and then do one where we'll be real sexy.
I stand up for other people, I'm very protective of people around me. If I feel like somebody is getting a bad rap or being unfairly picked on, I will stand up for them, absolutely.
When I got into rap I didn't exactly win any popularity contests. I called myself Dee Dee King, after B.B. King, to the total dismay of my fellow Ramones.
I like rap. I like anything with soul. I like anything you can feel, anything that makes you think that the artist had to make that song, or they were going to go crazy.
The biggest rap on me is that I don't find a Watergate every couple of years. Well, Watergate was unique. It's not something Carl Bernstein, I, or the Washington Post caused.
Toasting is basically what you call rapping. It came off of playing the beats at the parties, however it be. You find a space in the beat, and you have somebody live just basically saying rhymes over the beat.
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.
Mike and Heather and I rapped once or twice in New York and then we all wound up on a train together on the way out to Maryland. I think it was about a month and a half from the time we got cast until the time we shot the thing.
While also, importantly, not wanting to dumb it down or pretend the days of 'difficult' poetry are over, because we live in a pluralist culture and there's room for 'difficult' poetry alongside rap and everything else. And poetry won't be for everyon...
I don't care if it's rap, metal, whatever. You still should play Beatles records mixed with Limp Bizkit mixed with Foghat mixed with Creedence Clearwater Revival, stuff like that.
