Rakim

“I'm a fan of hip-hop as well. I like everybody who keeps the game on their toes and keep it pushing.”

“Without no disrespect to any artist, there's a lot of degrading music out there as far as degrading the culture and degrading society as well. That's individuals that choose to make that kind of music.”

“Hip-hop has taken a lot of different routes throughout the years, man. I've been around since 1986.”

“Subconsciously, Islam took over me, so it was like eighty or ninety percent of the fabric of the person I was.”

“My thing was, I loved music. I played music: I played the saxophone. So the little bit of music knowhow I had, I tried to implement that in every thing I did, from my style, my cadence, the way I tried to pause and stagnate it; that all came from John Coltrane and listening to jazz albums. Trying to rhyme like a jazz player.”

“I'm a fan of Jay-Z, from the negotiating table to the booth.”

“In New York, they kind of rode with me from day one: they understand who I am.”

“I always went left to what everybody else was doing. I'm used to going against the grain.”

“My kids listen to rap, so I try to keep up with as much as I can.”

“Sometimes I write from the end of the verse to the beginning of the verse.”

“I don't believe in writer's block. I'll get stuck, but being stuck, I'll still write a verse. If you know where you're going, you can always start from there and work your way back.”

“Jada, Styles P, the LOX, period. You throw on one of their joints... I'm in the whip; I try to keep my cool in the whip. I don't like bouncing around, getting my crazy on, but it's certain joints you gotta wild out. Roll the window down, blast the joints, let it be heard. That's one of them groups that bang it out.”

“You come up, you love music, and then business interferes.”

“You grow, you mature, you live, and you learn. You get a little wiser, and you learn better ways to handle things.”

“I had a lot of respect for Prodigy. He brought the hood to the booth. When we were trying to shape this rap thing into something, he was one of the cats I respected for bringing the hood into the booth.”

“You know, I got kids. I got sons, and I try to tell them, 'Look, man, when you in the car and you get pulled over, hands on the steering wheel. 'Yes, sir. No sir.' Your job is to either wind up in jail, so I can come get you, or be able to pull off. That's your job.'”

“I can't look at TV without seeing something that's been influenced by rap. Even commercials for cereal. When I was small, I was a fan of cartoon characters - now the cartoon characters are rapping!”

“My mother sang jazz and opera - she even performed at the Apollo on Amateur Night.”

“When I started rhyming, my favorite rhythms were from John Coltrane and some of the things he did on sax. And certain rhythms that I hear on drums, I try to emulate with my words, dropping on the same patterns that them beats or them notes would hit.”

“To me, sometimes things outside of rap inspire me to rap.”