Hip Quotes & Sayings

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

Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring, rainbowed jet! - that one strives, this one jettest all in vain! In vain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost thou, darker half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith All thy unnamable imminglings float beneath me here; I am buoyed by breaths of once living things, exhaled as air, but water now. — Herman Melville

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

I'm not hip, I'm not cool, I'm not glib. — Eric Bogosian

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

Skating is now retro and hip. — Robin Cousins

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

I am not great in a crowd. I don't see a lot of rock shows because sometimes I am afraid I won't get out. I used to squeeze my little self into the scrum and jump around and cause tiny trouble. Now I just want to sit down and have someone perform my five favorite songs while I eat a light dinner and receive a simultaneous pedicure. Is there some kind of awesome indie/alt/hip-hop/electronica music tour that can do that? — Amy Poehler

We are very hip on the fact that America's always No. 1. On this we are not, in terms of the number of women in our legislative branches and obviously as head of state. We need to push on that. I hate to say this: It isn't all men's fault. I think some of it is our own attitude and approach. Some of it very healthy, that women want to make choices about their lives and how they want to spend their time, and what they value. — Madeleine Albright

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

Too many younger artists, critics, and curators are fetishizing the sixties, transforming the period into a deformed cult, a fantasy religion, a hip brand, and a crippling disease. — Jerry Saltz

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

Maybe it's the fact the most of the arts here are produced by world-weary and sophisticated older people and then consumed by younger people who not only consume art but study it for clues on how to be cool, hip - and keep in mind that, for kids and younger people, to be hip and cool is the same as to be admired and accepted and included and so Unalone. Forget so-called peer-pressure. It's more like peer-hunger. No? We enter a spiritual puberty where we snap to the fact that the great transcendant horror is loneliness, excluded encagement in the self. Once we've hit this age, we will now give or take anything, wear any mask, to fit, be part-of, not be Alone, we young. The U.S. arts are our guide to inclusion. A how-to. We are shown how to fashion masks of ennui and jaded irony at a young age where the face is fictile enough to assume the shape of whatever it wears. And then it's stuck there, the weary cynicism that saves us from gooey sentiment and unsophisticated naivete. — David Foster Wallace

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

I like flat black. It doesn't try to explain anything, and it's been hip since before I was born, I guess. — Dennis Cooper

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

There's a lathered sorrel stallion running through the Joshua trees and a young man in the saddle with his coat tails in the breeze. He's got a six gun on his right hip and a rifle at his knees and he's dealing in a game that he can't win. — Charlie Daniels

He didn't speak for a bit, but his weight drew me closer, like a moon pulled near to its planet. I lay quiet, my hand on him, my hip against his - flesh of his flesh. — Diana Gabaldon

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

Now, infidel, I have you on the hip! — William Shakespeare

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

She'd been a beautiful woman in her day, delicate and trim, blue-eyed and fair-haired. There was a certain power beautiful mothers held over there less beautiful daughters. Even at seventy-four, with a limp from a hip replacement, Margaret could still enter a room and fill it like perfume. Josey could never do that. The closest she ever came was the attention she used to receive when she pitched legendary fits in public when she was young. But that was making people look at her for all the wrong reasons. — Sarah Addison Allen

He was a splendid specimen of manhood, standing a good two inches over six feet, broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, with the carriage of the trained fighting man. His features were regular and clear cut, his hair black and closely cropped, while his eyes were of a steel gray, reflecting a strong and loyal character, filled with fire and initiative. His manners were perfect, and his courtliness was that of a typical southern gentleman of the highest type. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now look here, Bailey," she said, "see here, read this," and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. "Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did. — Flannery O'Connor

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

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

That's a trick question Peter. It's real-life. Master P is a thug. He's poppin' everybody. — Machine Gun Kelly

Laugh now, cry later: this is the karma.
Hip-hop never died, it's just sick of the drama. — Cormega

I think every generation has that movement of hip-hop that you know you're playing it and you definitely have that moment of like, "Why am I saying this so enthusiastically? Why am I so stoked and psyched to say these lyrics?" — Solange Knowles

When I started, I was 23 years old directing my own music videos; I'm co-producing on my album; I'm hands-on with everything. I'm more than just a pretty boy: I'm an artist. I'm not saying I'm a hip-hop music artist, I'm an artiste. — ASAP Rocky

I've always been an outsider. When I did magic, I was the only kid. When I worked with Johnny Cash, I was completely out of place in Nashville. And when I started Def Jam, I was the only white guy in the hip-hop world. — Rick Rubin

They'd paid some madman who thought he was a decorator a lot of money to make the place look hip and unique. Maybe it's my lack of fashion sense talking, but I thought they should have held out for one of these gorillas who has learned to paint. The results would have been of similar quality, and they could have paid in fresh produce. — Jim Butcher

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

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

I ran my fingers along his jaw and he stroked my hip. We didn't talk because there were no words to say, nothing to describe the moment where we grew from boys who were best friends to men who were lovers. — Megan Erickson

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

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

Aaron and I will be joined at the hip until the day we die. We have loved and hated each other since the day he was born. He's very much a part of my heart. He's going to broadcasting college now, and he'll do fine. But he came into a world that did not welcome him. — Lynn Johnston

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

Kids shouting and skidding in the playground with no idea what future Hells awaited them: boring jobs and ruinous mortgages and bad marriages and hair loss and hip replacements and lonely cups of coffee in an empty house and a colostomy bag at the hospital. — Donna Tartt

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

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

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

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.

I was always a person on my mother's hip in the kitchen. My mom really wanted her kids at her side as much as possible, and she worked in restaurants for over fifty years. And my grandfather had ten children, and he grew and prepared most of the food. My grandmother, on my mother's side, was the family seamstress and the baker. So my mom, the eldest child, was always in the kitchen with my grandpa and I was always in the production and restaurant kitchens and our own kitchen with my mom. And it's just something that has always spoken to me. — Rachael Ray

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

Once you can squat with 180 kilograms, your arms and shoulders will come along much more receptively ... If you want big arms and shoulders, your first priority is to be sure that your leg/hip/back structure is growing and becoming powerful — Stuart McRobert

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

You're both perfectly all right," she informed them. "And we will get Aurimere back, and our magic back, and our town back, and then we will have everything we need."

"We have some important stuff already," Ash offered tentatively.

Lillian frowned. "What do you mean?"

Jared surrendered himself to the strangeness of this situation, sank back onto the pillows himself with his head near Lillian's hip, and sighed heavily to attract his aunt's attention. "He wants to know you love him more than that stupid house."

"It is a very nice house," Aunt Lillian said, sounding offended. "Your ancestors are buried in the crypt of that house."

"Sure. Okay. We'll get our lovely creepy house back. When they bury me in that crypt, I want 'Jared, very inbred, deeply uncomfortable about it' on my tombstone. — Sarah Rees Brennan

I have no desire to be hip to the latest black slang and do the stereotypical black thing. I was a Richard Pryor fan, and I have used profanity in my act. But when it becomes a whole thing that defines blacks, we're limiting ourselves. The enemy is us. — Franklyn Ajaye

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

In one way, I was always hip. I was hip in kindergarten. I was different from the others. There was something wrong with me, I thought, because I seemed to see things people didn't see. I always saw things in a hallucinatory way. — John Lennon

It's either hip or it ain't. — Lee Morgan

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

Morrissey wrote a really gorgeous song for me. I'm crazy for that man. And he thinks I'm hip! — Nancy Sinatra

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

We were tempted to have T-shirts made that said on the front: "We May Not Be Hip Enough To Drink Here, But We Are Rich Enough To Live Here," and on the back in larger letters: "Fuck Off Back To Clapham." Like giving the finger to the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. — Simon Majumdar

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

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

But baby, you started this." The hand on her hip tugged her closer, her inner thighs brushing against the smooth fabric pulled taut over his long legs.
She tugged at the fingers on her hip, wriggling at the same time, desperate to escape. "And now I'm ending it."
"I'll decide where it ends," he said. — Tracey Alvarez

Coolness is not an image that can be bought or worn. True cool is an attitude that is projected from a person who is extremely comfortable in their own skin. — Suzy Kassem

Ever since our Surfin' Safari' began in the early 1960's, the relations'hip with The Beach Boys and water has been synonymous. 'Surfin', 'Catch a Wave', and 'Surfin' USA' are songs which capture the feelings of being out in the water without a care in the world, living a dream so many long to live no matter where they are from. — Mike Love

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

Sure, I've gotten old. I've had two bypass surgeries, a hip replacement, new knees ... I've fought prostate cancer and diabetes. I'm half blind, can't hear anything quieter than a jet engine, and take 40 different medications that make me dizzy, winded, and subject to blackouts. I have bouts with dementia, poor circulation, hardly feel my hands or feet anymore, can't remember if I'm 85 or 92, but ... thank God, I still have my Florida driver's license! — Red Buttons

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

It was a bitch living with your old English teacher, especially when your old English teacher wasn't old at all, and he had exactly the kind of body that most appealed to her, tall and lean, broad in the shoulder, narrow at the hip. Then there was his brain. It had taken her a lot of years to find that particular part of a man appealing, but she'd finally gotten in the habit, and she couldn't seem to give it up. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

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

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

These days, rock 'n' roll is much more about rock than about roll. I don't do rock. But I'm interested in that roll part, because that's the funny little bit that makes it hip. — Nick Lowe

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

It's only sixteen ninety-five," I say with a flutter of my lashes.
"You're serious."
I prop my hands on my waist and stick out a hip, striking a pose worthy of a supermodel. "Look at me. Don't I look serious?"
She collapses into the chair outside the dressing room in a fit of giggles so cute they make my insides fizz. "No! You must be stopped," she says.
"Why?" I strut down an aisle of yellowed lingerie, swiveling my hips, batting bras with flicks of my fingers. "I will be the king of the disco. I will be - " I spin and strike another pose. "An inspiration."
She sniffs and swipes at her eyes. "The real Dylan would die before he'd be seen in public in something like that."
"The real Dylan is boring." I brace my hands on the arms of her chair and lean down until our faces are a whisper apart. "And he's not one fourth the kisser I am."
"Is that right?" Her lips quirk.
"You know it is."
Her smile melts, and her breath comes faster. "Yeah. I do. — Stacey Jay

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

It's weird, maybe, that I love your scar as much as I do."
I have to remind myself to breathe.
"You thought it was the first thing I noticed, but it wasn't. I didn't even pay attention to it until the middle of the night, when you finally lay down on the bed and I kissed from your toe to your hip. Maybe you hate it, but I don't. You earned it. I'm in awe of you. — Christina Lauren