Best Underground Hip Hop Quotes & Sayings

For underground metaphors, you can scrape an inch below the turf.
For what it's worth, my style's been developed in the core of the Earth.
The exhale's volcanic, the inhale is seismic ... — J-Live

I've been involved in a lot of different kinds of projects. I've been on straight hip hop tours. I've been on underground rock tours. I've been on multimillion selling rock shows. I've been in the jam band thing, and both commercial and underground hip hop. Very few people listen to one kind of music. — Boots Riley

Mixtape legend, underground kings ... Looking for the right way to do the wrong things — Drake

I see that happening with hip hop purists now. Where you have an artist like a Kendrick [Lamar] or a Drake, who are really trying different things emotionally, different things musically, and on a mainstream level. And you have underground hip hop fans dissing it, for the simple fact that it's mainstream - not because what they're doing is whack, or what they're doing is not sincere. — Talib Kweli

Nowadays rap artists coming half-hearted,
Commercial like pop, or underground like black markets.
Where were you the day hip-hop died?
Is it too early to mourn? Is it too late to ride? — Talib Kweli

You took the Alkaholik challenge, and lost your balance
You underground, we under water drinkin liquid by the gallons — Xzibit

Hip-hop is like underground. I don't know if hip-hop exists anymore. I don't know if it does. — Theophilus London

I listen to a lot of different music. I love hip-hop. I'm a big underground rap fan. I listen to the likes of J. Cole. Lately, I've also been getting into techno house music. And I've been on an Eighties retro kick, and I've even been experimenting with some rock. — Denzel Whitaker

There's constantly this melancholy about British hip-hop. People are always waiting for it to explode like American hip-hop, but it might just be that British hip-hop will always be as it is: an underground thing which will stay that way. — Zadie Smith

The emergence of the independent hip-hop scene has replaced what we called the "underground scene". It's what the underground scene has evolved into: actual businesses. — El-P

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. — Moby

The big change was reggae and hip-hop, which came along after Split Enz had started. When Bob Marley first visited New Zealand, he lit a fuse that is still burning very brightly. The Maori people particularly honor reggae music in a very big way. So there is a strong reggae scene and a strong hip-hop scene, especially among Samoans. There's still plenty of quirky stuff around. No one expects to make much money here, so it definitely does encourage an underground sense. — Tim Finn

A lot of underground hip-hop will inspire me as far as rhyme patterns - really wordy, intelligent lyrics. — Travie McCoy

It doesn't get any more underground, conscious or indie than Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, but because they got a couple of really big pop hits, actually some of the biggest pop hits that hip-hop has ever seen, people are missing that part of their story. People are not counting that blessing. — Talib Kweli

Legions of young hip-hop fans are as against this as hip-hop's most fierce critics. There is a huge underground movement within hip-hop circles that against these representation. You can hear this message on tons of lyrics and rap songs produced by independent emcees. But they are fighting against a well-oiled and well-financed machine. — Bakari Kitwana

The thing about hip-hop is that it's from the underground, ideas from the underbelly, from people who have mostly been locked out, who have not been recognized. — Russell Simmons