Great Rap Quotes & Sayings

I was very introverted growing up and I had small circle of friends. Any opportunity I got to rap or articulate things through rhyme or hip hop was great for me. — LeCrae

I was lucky enough to see the original cast of 'In the Heights.' This one blew my mind. The infusion of Latin, hip hop and rap with musical theatre, great storytelling and talent was a powerful combination to me during a time when I'd not been moved by much! — Josh Young

I sat down with my long time business partner and Rap-A-Lot CEO James Prince to review the music that we had and quickly came up with an outstanding track list. 'The Epilogue' is the perfect opportunity to release some great material to the fans and a proper final chapter for the Trill-ogy. Good music is timeless. — Bun B.

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. — Ice-T

And when I smiled, 'Bing!' I almost blinded her.
She said, 'Great Scot, are you a thief?
Seems like you have a mouth full of gold teeth!'
Hahahaha, had to find that funny,
So I said, 'No child, I work hard for the money.
And calling me a thief? Please ... don't even try it,
Sit down, eat your slice of pizza, and be quiet.' — Slick Rick

The greats weren't great because at birth they could paint
The greats were great because they paint a lot — Macklemore

You and your friends ... always together,
No time for the B-I-G, so I'm O-U-T.
The sex was great, but the headaches I can't take.
I think I made a very big mistake. — The Notorious B.I.G.

Rap is stress, but it pays great. — Drake

I been to many malls from state to state,But I've never been in, say, one this great.I hate to say, about the other shopping centers that's left,But the Albee Square Mall is the doo-doo-def! — Biz Markie

What's bad for the culture is wack rappers that get held in high regard like they're some great thing because it's the flavor of the month, but everybody knows they can't rap. I don't think it's hard, even for somebody who's not hip-hop, to know that that's not good. When you put them up against somebody that can really rhyme, you go, "Okay, I get it. This is what it should sound like." — Ice-T

Failure. Never before has a thing gotten such a bad rap as failure. And why wouldn't it? It's failure. In a video game, failure means to fucking die, to drop into a pit of lava while the princess remains unsaved (oh, sexist video games, when will the lady plumber save the prince instead of the other way around?). You fail a class and it's like
*poop noise*
you failed, you're held back, time is wasted, money is lost, you suck, you stupid person. Hell with that. Failure is brilliant. Failure is how we learn. Every great success and every kick-ass creator is the product of a hundred failures, a thousand, some epic-big, some micro-tiny. We learn the right moves by taking the wrong turns. Failure should not drag you into the pits of personal despair but rather leave you empowered. Failure is an instructional manual written in scar tissue. — Chuck Wendig

The conservative media game was neatly summarized by Matt Labash, a former senior writer for The Weekly Standard, in a 2003 interview on the website journalismjobs. Labash explained: 'The conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being objective. We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective. It's a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket.' — Matt Labash

I don't even think I'm that good at rapping, but I think what makes a great rapper - what CAN make a great rapper - is someone who wants to be better. — Donald Glover

The music is meant to be provocative - which doesn't mean it's necessarily obnoxious, but it is (mostly) confrontational, and more than that, it's dense with multiple meanings. Great rap should have all kinds of unresolved layers that you don't necessarily figure out the first time you listen to it. Instead it plants dissonance in your head. You can enjoy a song that knocks in the club or has witty punch lines the first time you hear it. But great rap retains mystery. It leaves shit rattling around in your head that won't make sense till the fifth or sixth time through. It challenges you. — Jay-Z

Will Young. He's a great white soul singer. But he was slightly disappointing when I met him - not that friendly. Perhaps he was having a bad day. I love Take That, they're terrific. Gary Barlow is so talented. I've always hated punk rock and I'm not mad about rapping, but then it's not really for my age group. — Tony Blackburn

I can't say enough good things about my band. I feel very fortunate that I found them when I did, very early in my career. Not only are they just great, nice guys; they're some of the best musicians you're likely to find. They do everything from gangsta rap to polka music and every genre in between. It's amazing. — Al Yankovic

We've always said we're a HEAVY METAL band. We've kinda branched out here and there - we've done a rap thing, we've done a rap-rock thing, we've done something with Angelo Belmonte, who's the primary composer of Twin Peaks. In fact, most of David Lynch's movies is Angelo. He did something with us and that was great. We've also acted, we've done an episode in Married with Children, which was awesome - so we're always looking to do things which you wouldn't expect. — Charlie Benante

Confidence is just entitlement. Entitlement has gotten a bad rap because it's used almost exclusively for the useless children of the rich, reality TV stars, and Conrad Hilton Jr., who gets kicked off an airplane for smoking pot in the lavatory and calling people peasants or whatever. But entitlement in and of itself isn't so bad. Entitlement is simply the belief that you deserve something. Which is great. The hard part is, you'd better make sure you deserve it. — Mindy Kaling

New York was at the forefront of rap, so because of all the great people who have gone before me, being a rapper from Queens, I have to live up to those standards. I'm basically just a regular guy who says what he feels and likes to joke. I like long walks on the beach ... and I love rap. — Action Bronson

The crowd response has always been great, we always have fun at the shows and we will definitely be back representing our album to give people entertainment with a stage show, most rap shows are boring. — B-Real

For a long period of time, the media covered rap music and hip hop the same way they cover a lot of black people, people of color, you know, the bad news happens to be news. They used to have these little stupid colloquialisms that pop up like, "You know what? No news is bad news!" They trick the masses into thinking that any news is great for you. And I just think that's a piece of crap. — Chuck D

It's a joke to think that anyone is one thing. We're all such complex creatures. But if I'm going to be a poster child for anything, anger's a gorgeous emotion. It gets a bad rap, but it can make great changes happen. — Alanis Morissette

Occasionally, a great band would come along, like Blondie or OutKast who could be pop and bring interesting ideas into the mainstream at the same time. That's now gone, because of this weird mutation of pop, rap, R&B, bad rave, and supposedly soulful singing on top of it. — Johnny Marr

The Great White Male is rap's Grand Inquisitor, its idiot questioner, its Alien Other no less than Reds were for McCarthy. — David Foster Wallace

One of the great things about rap music ... it leaves a lot to be desired, as far as I'm concerned, musically, but I do recognize the very important place that it has in music and in creating role models for younger kids to emulate, giving them the dream that they can make it out of whatever situation they're in. — Graham Nash

I don't have any sympathy for the subject matter, [but] I have great respect for rap artists. In fact, not for the rap artists, but the people who make the music over which they rap. Rap music - the music itself is incredible - but [the people that make the music] are hardly ever credited. — Stewart Copeland

There's so much that I want to do. I feel like I'm the Magic Johnson of rap. You know, Magic was great on the basketball court, but he's bigger as a businessman. — Snoop Dogg

Abby had a little experience with the rap genre already - she used to spit rhymes with this little blond neighbor kid when she would visit her aunt and uncle in Detroit. Marshall something. Great kid. A little tightly wound. — Andrew Shaffer

There's two elements to rap: having the thoughts, and then being a great rapper. — Drake

No-frill rappers: you will evaporate, disintegrate, deflate to your fate,
as the great will dominate straight to the state
Of reignin', gainin' ... So put Kane in
That category. Period. End of story. — Big Daddy Kane

I grew up listening to all kinds of music, everything from country to rock, pop, R&B and even rap, so for me, music is music and a great song is a great song. — Jason Aldean

People are very adamant about maintaining a certain sound or a certain era, like, "There were three years of rap that were great, so let's just keep doing that." The genre itself is just stuck in place. It's been treading water for a while. — Aesop Rock

To be honest, I was unaware of the huge frat-rap scene that was taking over the blogosphere until I found myself right in the middle of it. But there are really a ton of talented dudes out there doing this, and I'm just having a great time making music and being a part of it all. — Mike Stud

A great deal of what I say just leaves me open, I suppose, to a vast amount of misunderstanding. A great deal of what I say is based on an assumption which I hold and don't always state. You know my fury about people is based precisely on the fact that I consider them to be responsible, moral creatures who so often do not act that way. But I am not surprised when they do. I am not that wretched a pessimist, and I wouldn't sound the way I sound if I did not expect what I expect from human beings, if I didn't have some ultimate faith and love, faith in them and love for them. You see, I am a human being too, and I have no right to stand in judgment of the world as though I am not a part of it. What I am demanding of other people is what I am demanding of myself. — James Baldwin

Hip-hop was a big part of my life growing up, especially West Coast gangster rap. The reason I was able to listen to it so freely was that my mom couldn't hear any of it, so we would be driving along just blaring Too $hort's horrible misogynistic stuff, and my mom would just turn to us and say, "This is great. I can feel the bass. It sounds so nice." And we're like, "Yeah, mom. We can feel the bass, too." — Moshe Kasher

I can't relate to livin' less than great. — Extra P