What Rap Is About Quotes & Sayings

The only good thing about the 1980s was that they invented rap, but rap didn't get good until 1992, so what does that say about the 1980s. — Drew

There are poor white people who hear rap music and feel it is about them, because it is. That's why you have an Eminem and a Bubba Sparxxx and rappers like that. — Russell Simmons

So called 'late-bloomers' get a bad rap. Sometimes the people with the greatest potential often take the longest to find their path because their sensitivity is a double edged sword- it lives at the heart of their brilliance, but it also makes them more susceptible to life's pains. Good thing we aren't being penalized for handing in our purpose late. The soul doesn't know a thing about deadlines. — Jeff Brown

The power of the voice in rap is about the expression of truth, rather than the expression of some kind of artifice. — Eliza Griswold

Guys get a bad rap for not wanting to talk about their feelings but maybe women are in part to blame for that. One thing that I learned from working with people where English was not their first language was this: just because they don't speak your language doesn't mean that they're dumb. Maybe we just need to talk more slowly, use simpler words and have lots more patience. — Dermot Davis

I cut a rap song once. It was a few years ago for my old show 'Buck Commander,' and it was a song called 'You're Short.' It was about my camera guy. We shot the video in Las Vegas, 'Ocean's Eleven' style! — Willie Robertson

We tell each other everything. You take the rap for bad things I do, we have this amazing time together and then all day in classes you ignore me like I don't exist. And I have to watch you and Sally together, and you licking her arse and not telling her about me. And when she says something mean to me you just stand there. I don't even answer back like I used to, I take it and you just stand there and let her speak to me the way she does. What about the fact that I am your best friend now? How do you think that feels, Flo? It feels HORRIBLE, that is how it feels. HORRIBLE.'
I leave her standing in the rain. I deliberately go slowly so she can catch me up, but she doesn't. I get all the way home and she never comes after me. — Dawn O'Porter

I didn't really know what to expect, but I thought there aren't a lot of rap groups that can say they have a documentary done about them, so my attitude was like, 'Shoot, why not?' I'm sure there are a lot of people that would like to take our place. I felt like we should all embrace it. — Phife Dawg

The art of rap is deceptive. It seems so straightforward and personal and real that people read it completely literally, as raw testimony or autobiography. And sometimes the words we use, nigga, bitch, motherfucker, and the violence of the images overwhelms some listeners. It's all white noise to them till they hear a bitch or a nigga and then they run off yelling "See!" and feel vindicated in their narrow conception of what the music is about. — Jay-Z

Take these words home and think it through;
Or the next rhyme I write might be about you. — Prodigy

... We are in a system that doesn't give a rap about sacredness. — Jean-Francois Lyotard

I rap about Memphis and what a dangerous spot that is. — Juicy J

I'm at a point where I don't have to wait for the income from the record to survive, so I'm in a comfortable zone, but I'll make rap records as long as I feel I have something to rap about. — Ice-T

I think all music - not just rap - has fallen into this very diluted, delusional state, where everyone's singing about money and having cars, and having all this fun; when really, people are losing their homes. — Ice-T

Attack those concepts such as 'third world.' Think about it. If we look at it in terms of numbers, then people of color are the majority in this world. We should be the 'first world.' — H. Rap Brown

An old African leader says about leadership, he says that leadership should never be shared; it should always remain in the hands of the dispossessed people. We will lead the revolution. — H. Rap Brown

It's about finding what's next. I'm hesitant to let people know what producers I'm f
ing with, what I'm rapping about. I'd rather drop that winning hand out of nowhere. — Drake

My favorite band of all time is The Clash. The thing I love about The Clash is they started out as guys who could barely play three chords. They dabbled in reggae, punk, rap, jazz. They came to a sound that could only be defined as The Clash. It was impossible to say what it was. I admire them for that. — Michael Franti

The principles of true hip-hop have been forsaken,
It's all contractual and about money makin'. — Black Thought

Do you ever think about when you outta here?
Record deal and video, outta here!?
Mercedes Benz and Range Rover, outta here!? — KRS-One

We were coming out of the black community with this thing called rap music, which was basically black men yelling at the top of their lungs about what we liked and what we didn't like. It was disturbing to the status quo. It really shook things up. And those in power didn't know what to make of us, but they knew that we had to be silenced, stopped in any way from expressing our outrage. — Chuck D

Rapping is a vocal delivery, so you can do it without being part of hip-hop and not knowing what hip-hop is about. — Ice-T

I think rap in the street when they have rap competitions is thrilling because these kids are making it up and having a go at each other. They've got something to say. This is about getting their frustrations out. — Nigel Lythgoe

No one raps about food like I do. I rap about fine dishes - like, all kinds of things that only real chefs and real foodies are going to know about. — Action Bronson

Americanomics works, and I won't argue that is true.
But if the economy is getting better, getting better for who?
Well, if you ask me, I'm doing much worse than before,
With the welfare cuts, I don't eat no more.
So if I did wanna go out, I couldn't go nowhere,
Cause I ate every last one of them reindeer.
Rudolph first, I went down the list,
I got so hungry, I just couldn't resist.
I ate Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Dixon,
Fried them up and then started to mix them.
And before you knew it, they were all gone,
I wonder what y'all gonna do about my reindeer song! — Kool Moe Dee

Being young and female in America, you watch a lot of T.V., and you grow up on false images of what love truly is. We think the man with the best rap will protect and save us, about it's not usually that way. Then you learn love is something deeper and purer in form. — Lauryn Hill

Think about it, if you was there standing looking at me.
What would you do, if I hit your face with dog doo-doo? — Kool Keith

For me, I like old-school rap music. There was a time when music was so, so rich overall, and the content of what people talked about was so deep on every level, song-for-song, pound-for-pound, and on radio, there was so much content. I gravitate more towards that type of music, to be honest. — Ciara

Rock 'n' roll is sexuality personified. It is attitude. It is all the things that your parents told you not to do. It's the freedom to express yourself. It's being alive. It expresses the times. It's a magazine, a newspaper that tells the truth. If you listen to rap today, it's all about the truth. And that's what we all want. Just give me a little truth. — Steven Tyler

I think that hip-hop is more of an individual effort. That means you're an artist from the streets, they expect you to rap about the streets, because that's what happens there. — Conor Oberst

Every time I rap about being a big girl in a small world, it's doing a couple things: it's empowering my self-awareness, my body image, and it's also making the statement that we are all bigger than this; we're a part of something bigger than this, and we should live in each moment knowing that. — Lizzo

I'm just basically spillin' out my emotions to the world. 'Cause rap is about emotion. And I want you to feel what I'm feelin', 'cause that's what it's all about. — Ludacris

Picked up the yoga, put down the soda.
My healthy mind ... that's what's gon' help me over.
Life of a stoner (if you still concerned),
I never lose, I only win or learn;
It's all about your state of mind. — Dizzy Wright

The rapping is cool, but my lines aren't all that fly. People like Biggie Smalls or Jay-Z who say stuff that you have to rewind and listen to twice and be like, "Wow, what made them say that?" or "I would have never thought about saying that" - those are rappers I really look up to. As far as flows, I can give you flows all day. — Missy Elliot

I remember rap music. We used to party and dance off of it. Today it's all about a whole different angle ... Rappers are going against each other, and it's more of a bragging, boasting thing. — Flavor Flav

Rap is supposed to be about keeping it real and not relinquishing your roots in the community. Without that, it's just posturing. Somebody who claims to speak for the 'hood don't need no private jet. — Chuck D

Luke! ... We have to be able to do cool dancing so we don't embarrass our child!"
"I'm a very cool dancer," replies Luke. "Very cool indeed,"
"No you're not!"
"I had dance lessons in my teens, you know," he retorts. "I can waltz like Fred Astire."
"Waltz?" I echo derisively. "That's not cool! We need to know all the street moves. Watch me."
I do a couple funky head-wriggle body-pop maneuvers, like they do on rap videos. When I look up, Luke is gaping at me.
"Sweetheart," he says. "What are you doing?"
"It's hip-hop!" I say. "It's street!"
"Becky! Love!" Mum has pushed her way through her dancing guests to reach me. "What's wrong? Has labour started?"
Honestly. My family has no idea about contemporary urban steet dance trends. — Sophie Kinsella

The writing process, the way I go about it is I do whatever the beat feels like, whatever the beat is telling me to do. Usually when the beat comes on, I think of a hook or the subject I want to rap about almost instantly. Within four, eight bars of it playing I'm just like, 'Oh, OK. This is what I wanna do'. — Eminem

Rappers are usually rapping about knowledge they think people need to get by in the world. If there's no movement that gives the idea that the knowledge people need is how to take over the system, what they see is that people need to know how to hustle; people need to know how to survive. — Boots Riley

The biggest thing that will define my legacy is how I've done it, and what I've done, and who I am. I'm a weird big guy. Doing rapping, doing movies. Do a lot of stuff. But always do things the right way. Went to the police academy to become a police officer. Get his master's in criminal justice, stayed out of trouble. Played for three different teams. Changed three different franchises around. This is a guy who they would have secret meetings about to change the rules. So, that's going to be my legacy: the most dominant player ever. — Shaquille O'Neal

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

I think what's exciting about doing it as found footage - if we all are being honest, found footage gets a little bit of a bad rap sometimes, but I think that there's a lot of potential in the medium in taking it seriously and in treating the audience with respect and in treating the characters with respect in terms of, why is the camera really on? Where would the camera be when it is on? — Dean Israelite

A homeless man once told me that dancing to rap music is the cultural equivalent of masturbating, and I'd sort of fell the same way about playing John Madden Football immediately after filing my income tax: It's fun, but - somehow - vaguely pathetic. — Chuck Klosterman

We talking about revolution because that's the era that you're caught in. — H. Rap Brown

If you ever fall off, freestyling is what gets you back on track and go. Freestlying ain't always just to rap; you might fall off and you gotta come back. That's what freestyling is all about. Come off the dome with whatever is on your mind. — Kurupt

And if you think about it, pretty much everything that made the twentieth century bearable was invented in a California garage: the Apple computer, the Boogie Board, and gangster rap. — Paul Beatty

When I see things that are inspiring, I must write a song about it. Some people make a t-shirt or slap something on a wall with paint, but I must make music and freestyle rap. — Flula Borg

Most rappers are black men. If you're a black man, you owe something to the community that you came from. If you're rapping about the community that you came from, and you're romanticizing parts of it for the entertainment of people who don't look like you, you certainly owe something to the community. — Killer Mike

The big stars in rap, they were too big, so when my rap generation started, it was about bringing you inside my apartment. It wasn't about being a rap star; it was about anything other than. — Nas

I'm a fan of the word selfish. Self. Ish. When I say I have gotten a lot more self-ish, I mean I am less concerned with what people think of me. I'm not worried about how I'm perceived. Selfish has always gotten a bad rap. You should do for you. — Matthew McConaughey

I don't try to rap about or emulate the life of another person. — Lazarus Of Bethany

I believe a lot in gangsta rap, I see in it a lot of positive things as it is. I believe it is only about doing politicization work. Revolutionary change will come from there, it won't come from conscious rap. — Bocafloja

Gangsta Rap is dead. I've moved on. And the raps that I'm rappin to my community shouldn't be filled with rage? They shouldn't be filled with same attrocities that they gave me? The media they don't talk about it, so in my raps I have to talk about it, and it seems foreign because there's no one else talking about it. — Tupac Shakur

Imagine the first time you are about to rap in a studio and you find yourself in a booth with Redman and KRS! — Angie Martinez

When you talk about rap you have to understand that rap is part of the Hip-Hop culture. — Afrika Bambaataa

You ask me, "Did I like Arsenio?"
About as much as the Bicentennial. — Ice Cube

I understand what rappers are talking about. I think rap is less about educating people about the black community and more about making money. — Dennis Rodman

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

Rap now is multi-generational, which has its own issues. My son is a big Cudi fan, but he does not like talking to me about Kid Cudi. — Lyor Cohen

All right, stop whatcha doin, cause I'm about to ruin
The image and the style that you're used to. — Shock G

I'd rather not live like there isn't a God Then die and find out there really is Think about it — Kendrick Lamar

In my mind, New York was the place where they had the underground rap shows and I could get in on some ciphers and just rap. This whole fantasy world I had created in my head about New York just from listening to the music my whole life, like, I'ma go up there and do that. But when I came up here, there was none of that, that scene was dead. — J. Cole

While 'Rap Trax!' recorded, Neel found some scrap paper and we started writing our first lyrics. Bandying about subject matter and title, we got stuck on the idea of 'cool', so my first rap song became 'Pretty Cool'. It was a symbol of our confidence. We weren't awesome cool or mega cool. We were only ... pretty cool. — Nikesh Shukla

If you want to speak about different ethnicities and diversity, rap and hip-hop are all over the planet. Every country, from Turkey to Australia, now has tons of hip-hop artists. The music and artistry have moved way faster than the corporatization of the music. You do need organization and opportunity for these artists to express themselves, and I don't think it has to come from a corporate co-signing. — Chuck D

If you want to say something profound, writing from your heartbeat is different than writing from the loud voices you get from music. If they're rapping from noise, it's about robbing people. It's that simple. — Russell Simmons

Back in the day, if someone said that hip hop and rap was a fad, that was a joke to me because they just didn't know what they were talking about. In reality, there were so many people who didn't know what they were talking about it. — Jam Master Jay

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 me, rap music is bigger than who's the coolest rapper, the biggest rapper. It's everything about your personality. — Diplo