Big Daddy Kane
Once you appreciate an art form, you're open to everything.Collection: Art
I believe that music is infinite.
I want to be remembered as a combination of Malcolm X and Marvin Gaye, a strong black leader and a sexy entertainer.
One of the smartest things I ever did was move to North Carolina.
You never hear a country-western station saying 'We have old school artist Willie Nelson in the house.' They say 'We have the legendary Willie Nelson.'
Being acknowledged as one of the best is enough for me.
Now if you call 'Ain't No Half-Steppin' ' or 'Raw' an old-school song, I agree with you. But if you call Big Daddy Kane an old-school artist, I disagree with you.
I went to this club in North Carolina and saw Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings perform. Just looking at the demographics of the audience, I thought it was interesting. A few weeks later, I was at the same spot to see Talib Kweli perform. And 60-70 percent of the crowd were the same people.
Yeah, if you go too far, like there's some rappers that use words that just be a little too out there, it makes it where someone doesn't really know what you're talking about and don't really have the time to sit and try to understand.
I remember Luther Vandross had turned me on to Versace in 1990. I remember a girl ironing the jeans for me and she was, like, 'What the hell are these? What's Vercayce?'
I think that Kool Moe Dee birthed Rakim, Rakim birthed Nas.
It's like do White privilege exist? Absolutely. In the case of passing judgment, you have to make sure that you're passing judgement on the right person.
People were taking off $5,000 gold chains to wear little $10 leather medallions that represented peace because that's what Public Enemy was about.
You know for some strange reason I like to write the verse first. I mean I know the majority of people do the chorus first and when I think about it, I guess it does make more sense to do the chorus first, but I just like to write the verses first, I don't know why.
The flow that I use, I really developed my rap style in the mid '80s based on Grandmaster Caz from the Cold Crush Brothers, from listening to him. That's like really who I pretty much patterned my style from and I just really took it to another level once I had the opportunity to get out amongst the world myself.
Me personally, I think that when I take my time with something, it comes out a lot better, because I can really, really get my point across, and if I see that like, this might be a little too deep, I figure out a way to dumb it down so that everybody can understand where I'm going.
I think that a lot of times you have artists that try to deliver a positive message.
Me and Rakim were always clear that we were rivals.
Rakim is a great lyricist. To me, it was always beautiful to be compared to him.
If you're White then yes, you have White privilege. It's there for the taking if you choose to use it, you know, just keeping it 100.
Premo is one of those producers that I've always had a lot of respect for. I've always thought that he's just extremely talented. More importantly, he's one of those dudes that just sticks to his formula, like if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Think that I started taking emceeing very serious probably from the very beginning. Because I started as a battle rapper. It was something that I was doing hoping that I could hang with my older cousin.
I was going to different neighborhoods around Brooklyn battling cats back in - this started in '82, so that's like eighth grade. Maybe 13, 14.
I think that when it comes to emceeing that there's so many different approaches. You have your party rappers, which pretty much is where it all originated from. With DJ Hollywood, Lovebug Starski, Eddie Cheeba, and all those guys in the '70s. Basic party rap.
There's so many different styles, but with me I just chose battle rap because I mean, I felt like that was the way to get people to really respect me.
Ol' Dirty used to come out to Queens and spend the night at my crib a whole lot.
Shyheim, I took him on the road with me on the Budweiser Superfest. He was like 15 years old, too young to be on a tour sponsored by a beer company.
When somebody tells me, 'The Source magazine had you in the Top 5 emcees,' I'm like, 'Okay, that's cool.' The other four may not be who I consider dope emcees.
Actually, I was supposed to battle Rakim back in '89.
I think that a lot of battle rappers have a difficult time making songs because they don't know how to do a song format. They're so stuck in that whole battle rap mentality that really all they want to do is just kick rhymes.
Eminem is a major star. Em and JAY-Z have achieved things that I have never came close to achieving in my life. They are both major stars in Hip Hop. And to top it off, they are both very lyrical.
Whatever form of hip-hop you like, man, love it and keep it going. Keep it strong. Make sure it stays powerful.
I love hip-hop and I'd love to see it grow.
I hope everybody out here is supporting hip-hop and trying to make it continue on.
I love when big things happen for Brooklyn.
I'm used to being respected for what I do, and I've watched as my peers - Doug E. Fresh, MC Lyte - do the same thing and I remember the ones before me - LL, Run-DMC - how it was for them. I think we were able to achieve what we achieved because we watched the generation before us.
I watch a lot of the YouTube battles: Goodz, Loaded Lux, I'm into stuff like that.
When people in the street say, 'You're in my top five,' that means the world to me.
I was a Barry White fan.
Production-wise, 'Looks Like a Job For... ' is an incredible album. I think that the weak point of the album was really me.
Prince of Darkness?' I don't know what the hell I was doing.
Shame is something that's man-made.
What can I say? I like breaking ground and exploring new things.
I think 'Long Live the Kane' was pretty much a real boxed-in mindset with me just doing what I represented in the hood.
I realized pretty much everything I did wrong with 'Long Live the Kane' and went right back in and did 'It's a Big Daddy Thing,' because now I had a more universal approach.
Early on I was a fan of Grandmaster Caz of the Cold Crush Brothers. I liked the way that he used a bunch of words to rhyme together in one line. And I picked up sarcasm by watching the older cats at the barbershop. They were just out there talking and saying slick lines to one another. I also got inspiration from Smokey Robinson.
When I came up with KRS-One and Rakim, everybody had to step their lyrical game up to build a fan base.
If I hadn't gone on the road with Patti LaBelle, then I wouldn't have brought Jay-Z on the road with me. When I saw her leave the stage to change clothes and allow the background singers to keep the show going, I said, 'That's something I wanna do.' So in the middle of my show, I would leave the stage and Jay-Z would come out and rhyme.
Raleigh feels like home. It has before I even moved here. During the late '90s I just fell in love with this city.
When hip-hop was new and raw, it was all about being an MC. You wanted to be respected as a lyricist. But as the years passed and hip-hop became big business, hip-hop became like country, rock and pop. And so you now have people who write the songs for rappers.