Best Hip Hop Quotes & Sayings

I got the Rolly on my arm and I'm pouring Chandon
And I roll the best weed cause I got it going on. — Snoop Dogg

Times were changing in the world of id. They had finally fired Jason, narrowing the group to Carmack, Romero, Adrian, and Tom. But something else was in the air. The Reagan-Bush era was finally coming to a close and a new spirit rising. It began in Seattle, where a sloppily dressed grunge rock trio called Nirvana ousted Michael Jackson from the top of the pop charts with their album Nevermind. Soon grunge and hip-hop were dominating the world with more brutal and honest views. Id was braced to do for games what those artists had done for music: overthrow the status quo. Games until this point had been ruled by their own equivalent of pop, in the form of Mario and Pac-Man. Unlike music, the software industry had never experienced anything as rebellious as Wolfenstein 3-D. The — David Kushner

I never see the whips niggas be claimin' they drivin,
I guess 'entertainment' means blatantly lyin'. — Nas

I am not one to brag but to tell you the truth mang,
I am funkier then a locker room after a hoop game. — Mac Dre

No matter how far you go, if you can't go back to the essence, you're not sayin' nothin'. The essence for me is hip-hop. But the hip-hop community I came up in isn't a loyal community. — Wyclef Jean

The human body is the best work of art. — Jess C. Scott

We got hookers with heaters that'll stray pop and put more shells in your top than Adidas. — Kool G Rap

I never let the worst things in life get the best of me.
So take these testes and, ummm ... open sesame. — King Sun

I come from a place, with all due respect, who's never had a music star in hip-hop. So the odds is already against me. — Wale

This one's for you, and I truly hope you hear me,
Through all your travels, I'm wishing you a peaceful journey. — Heavy D

When hip-hop was born she had no commercial home, and was an invention of beautiful creativity. Born from a beautiful struggle, today she is mostly a 'ratchet' bitch spitting nonsense from her pimp's mansion. — T.F. Hodge

Ayo, shout out to Mobb Deep, the Extra P
Busta Rhymes, De La, the J Beez, so don't sleep — Q-Tip

Dear Hip Hop, we can't scream 'murder, misogyny, lawlessness' in our music & then turn around and ask for equality & justice. — LeCrae

Therefore, we read the Bible selectively. We pick a text here and there to fit our felt needs. This is like a doctor who forgets how to write prescriptions for the best antibiotics because every- body seems healthy, and he has spent the last decades tweaking good health with hip-hop exercise videos, unaware that pestilence is at the door. It's like the soldier who forgets how to use his weapons because the times seem peaceful, and he has spent the last decades doing relief work and teaching the children how to play games. — John Piper

I love Dr. King, but violence might be necessary;
Cause when you live on MLK and it gets very scary,
You might have to pull your AK, send one to the cemetery. — Killer Mike

All we want in this life is peace, prosperity and a little paper. — Q-Tip

I had no idea how much the stuff I was doing was affecting people outside Oakland. At the time, also, hip hop wasn't able to tour because all these clubs that let hip hop come in now, they would never have let hip hop come in. — Boots Riley

What I feel with the best of hip-hop music and with the best of what has been produced by hip-hop culture is that it's going to be timeless, and it's going to last. — Simon De Pury

You know how a person is made for something? Eminem is made for hip-hop. The best rapper is a white man. — Curtis Jackson

Rev Run is a living legend of Hip-Hop, who's still making great music, but now he's also the dad to an amazing family, ... This series takes us inside his world. It's a kind of a reality 'Father Knows Best' with comedy, heart, Hip-Hop and drama-all under one roof at Run's House. — Tony DiSanto

No one can identify the uninformed until they voice their ignorance about a topic. Silence is a fool's best friend. Sadly, he is often too foolish to realize it. — Carlos Wallace

Oh am I late? No, I already graduated
And you can live through anything if Magic made it
They say I talk with so much emphasis
Ooh they so sensitive — Kanye West

Oh, my other goal was that I wanted to talk about this area and this time in history. I wanted to talk about growing up in Oakland, a white kid, from this kind of generation of broken homes and listening to hip-hop. — Moshe Kasher

The Devil crept into Heaven, God overslept on the 7th,
The New World Order was born on September 11. — Immortal Technique

As much as I am hip-hop, I'm soul. As much as I am soul, I'm a turntablist. As much as I'm a DJ, I love jazz and rock. — DJ Jazzy Jeff

All my teenage years my punk was hip-hop - I just hated pop music. — Gustav Ejstes

Hip-hop, you can't really do that when you're in your 50s. — Robert Greene

I'm just starting to take some more voice lessons but hell no, I'll always stick into the hip-hop genre. — SonReal

'Hamilton' is one of the best things I've ever seen on a stage, and for a guy who loves American history, hip-hop and theater, it was pure bliss. — Cory Booker

You can ask Beavis ...
I get nothing but head. — Big L

If it's time to party, it's time for hip hop. I love Drake, Jay-Z, Kanye. If I'm chilling at home though, I'm listening to Massive Attack, Thievery Corporation, Radiohead, DJ Shadow. I also listen to a lot of classical. — Alexis Knapp

The blues echoes right through into soul, R&B and hip hop. It's part of the make-up of modern music. You can't turn your back on the blues. — Ronnie Wood

I never fronted, you can get it if you want it ...
Won't say I'm the best, but I'm not that far from it. — Lord Finesse

That's the unwritten rule in hip-hop. If I get on a record with you, I want to smash you. That's it. Every MC knows that. If I'm on a track with you, I want to be the best on the track. That's just how it is in hip-hop. — Ja Rule

Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history, and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such topics. — Michael Eric Dyson

Personally, I just think rap music is the best thing out there, period. If you look at my deck in my car radio, you're always going to find a hip-hop tape; that's all I buy, that's all I live, that's all I listen to, that's all I love. — Eminem

I never go to the Grammys. I just never go. I don't know if I care enough, and I went because my son wanted to go, and they asked us to present Best Hip Hop Group of the Year. You know, we had two records from Compton in there, and it was just like a cool thing to do, and to do with your son, and it was just cool. But we was the first award up, so after I did my thing I just jumped in the car and came on back home. — Ice Cube

Beef is best served like steak:
Well done, get a gun in ya face. — Pusha T

Your best work involves timing. If someone wrote the best hip hop song of all time in the Middle Ages, he had bad timing. — Scott Adams

Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music. — Jay-Z

Oh My God, the [hip-hop] videos! The imagery is so awful! I just can't get with it at all. The best thing I can say about it is that sometimes you have to see that kind of stuff so as to have a more balanced view about why it's so bad. — Alicia Keys

There just needs to be a gay rapper. He doesn't have to be flamboyant, just a rapper who identifies as gay - who's better than everybody. Unfortunately hip-hop is so competitive that in order for fringe groups to get in, you gotta be better than whoever's the best. — Talib Kweli

People have stopped battling in hip hop, in the primitive sense, and the focus of the competitive element has shifted to the music. It's less about bragging and more about being the best lyrically and poetically. — Nas

What's more they are also some of the best-paid entertainers in history: Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent, raked in U.S. $150 million in 2008 alone, placing him on top of Forbes's "Hip-Hop Cash Kings" list. — Peter Mcallister

Award shows, like the Grammys, were tough on us early in hip-hop, not even televising our categories or splitting them up on best male or female or any of that. We had to earn them. — Queen Latifah

Life is a blast when you know what you're doin',
Best to know what you're doin' 'fore your life get ruined.
Life is a thrill when your skill is developed,
If you ain't got a skill or trade, then shut the hell up. — Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

Hip hop scholarship must strive to reflect the form it interrogates, offering the same features as the best hip hop: seductive rhythms, throbbing beats, intelligent lyrics, soulful samples, and a sense of joy that is never exhausted in one sitting. — Michael Eric Dyson

Being No. 1. It's talked about all of the time in hip-hop. 'I'm still No. 1! I'm the best! I'm the greatest of all time!' It's the same mentality in sports. — Michael Rapaport

We have this really retro vibe and style of songwriting and, personally, I wasn't embracing the current state of music until I fell in love with hip-hop. It felt good to suddenly embrace where music was headed, and I think hip-hop is the best at that, because it feels so progressive and everybody wants to be the best. — Nate Ruess

Lyrical lecture, word architecture,
Rap director, the best in my sector.
Microphone cool chief, releasin the smooth speech ...
I get nasty with a pen and some loose leaf. — Lord Finesse

I use a pick in my hair without force.
You use a lawn mower-you got peat moss. — Extra P

We went from candy bars, to handle bars, to hangin' in bars, to being behind bars — MF Grimm

So I think hip-hop is moving and is going to continue to move in the direction of rappers just being honest with themselves, whether you're talking about Common and Mos Def or Nas and 50 cent. — Talib Kweli

Forget yesterday, live for today. Tomorrow will take care of itself. — Rick Ross

There's a small group of guys in hip-hop that really have money. The whole culture talks about money, but it's a small group that actually has it. — Curtis Jackson

I played a little bit of everything. I got Ace of Bass, hip-hop songs, and dance hall [music]. — Theophilus London

Havin' cash is highly addictive, especially when you're used to havin' money to live with. — Prodigy

Never let no one know how much dough you hold. — The Notorious B.I.G.

Lyrically I'm supposed to represent,
I'm not only the client, I'm the player president — The Notorious B.I.G.

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. — Noel Gallagher

Yo, you 14-carat gold slum computer wizard,
Tappin' inside my rap vein causes blizzards! — Ghostface Killah

Hip-hop is about the brilliance of pavement poetry. — Michael Eric Dyson

While the patriarchal boys in hip-hop crew may talk about keeping it real, there has been no musical culture with black men at the forefront of its creation that has been steeped in the politics of fantasy and denial as the more popular strands of hip-hop. — Bell Hooks

When I was a kid, hip-hop had that effect on me, it was escape and it showed me a different way of life. — Mac Miller

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. — Jennifer Lopez

I hate how all the hip hop bands of today will put crazy sound effects into their songs. You know what I mean, like a police or ambulance siren in a tune? Because I could own the CD, I could listen to it 50 gamillion times in my car - I still fall for it every time. — Doug Benson

Just cause niggas get behind you don't mean they got your back
Beware of the serpent ... — Xzibit

Hip-hop can be limiting and I refuse to accept limits. — LL Cool J

I'm so sick of hearing that U.K. hip hop doesn't get credit and success when I'm working to get it - for me and for others, too. — Estelle

I got mouths to feed,
Unnecessary beef is more cows to breed. — GZA

My album will manifest many things I saw,did or heard about;
I talk first hand never word of mouth. — O.C.

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. — Wale

I like upbeat songs, and I listen to a lot of Linkin Park and Green Day. I also like hip hop and R&B artists such as Drake and Rihanna. — Lexi Thompson

You're living up in Heaven, but I know you're mad as Hell. — MF Grimm

I'm givin' more flat lines to niggas than loose-leaf. — Kool G Rap

Hip hop was definitely, far and away, the primary influence for at least 10 years of my life. From about 7 or 8 on till about 15 or 16, that's all I listened to. — Alex Ebert

I didn't really get that good at cutting because I didn't have those three years of gestating and nurturing my skills in the bedroom. I was kind of, like, out and playing in clubs after three of four months, because I was pushy with promoters. But I would just listen to the radio - Stretch Armstrong and Red Alert - and then I would go hang out with Mayhem, who did the WNYU hip-hop show. — Mark Ronson

Most people think its sex, money, and drugs but Hip-Hop is about lyrics, storytelling, and everybody having a different style. That's just another idea of beautiful, being yourself and creating music that represents you and what you like. — Rapsody

These soliloquies explain our people's lack of stability
You keepin it real, but ain't got a clue what reality really be
See the diameter of your knowledge
Is the circumference of your activity — Ras Kass

Leaning to the side but you can't speed through;
2 miles an hour so everybody sees you. — DJ Jazzy Jeff

MC's they retreat cause they know I can beat 'em,
And eat 'em in a battle and the ref won't cheat 'em.
I'm the best takin' out all rookies,
So forget Oreos ... eat Cool J cookies. — LL Cool J

You've got to realize that the world's a test,
You can only do your best and let Him do the rest.
You've got your life, and got your health,
So quit procrastinating and push it yourself. — Cee Lo Green

When I fell in love with hip-hop, my favorite rapper was Jay-Z. But I used to like Common and Nas. But I was a South dude. So I grew up on UGK, Triple Six, Outkast, and Pastor Troy. That's where I get my lingo, my slang, my passion. — Cyhi The Prynce

Nobody cares if I die for fighting Marathi breed. — Kjiva

The more emotion I put in to it the harder I rock. — O.C.

Hip-hop and being a pro athlete go hand in hand. When they come together, it's a win, not just for your business brand but also for culture. — Kendrick Lamar

Older generations can sometimes look down on today's hip hop but I refuse that mindset. I remember how hurt I was when older people told me that Run-D.M.C. was jungle music or that it was not music at all. Or that LL Cool J was not art. — Erik Parker

A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level. — Jay-Z