Prodigy
Actually doing a song, going to the studio, and just getting out on paper your anger makes you feel a little better sometimes.Collection: Anger
My family had a lot to do with 'My Infamous Life.' They were the inspiration behind me starting to write. I had an interesting family life dating way back, and they did a lot in their lifetime.Collection: Dating
The aggressiveness of it attracted me to hip-hop because I was angry inside. I was an angry kid because of the sickle cell. So I liked the anger in hip-hop. That's what attracted me to it; that's what made me want to do it. It helped me get my aggression out.Collection: Anger
Beauty ain't always a little, cute colored flower. Beauty is anything where people be like, 'Damn.'Collection: Beauty
I'm a big fan of Kurt Cobain. I put a picture of him holding a gun on my Instagram for his birthday. He's definitely one of my favorite rock artists.Collection: Birthday
I don't want fans anymore, because the definition of a fan is a fanatic. The people who buy my product and ride with me are my supporters, not fanatics.
Extreme pain to extreme pleasure has been the story of my entire life.
I have a deadly disease called Sickle Cell Anemia that I was born with that affects millions of others - primarily in the Black and Latino cultures. I feel I can inspire others with this Sickle Cell disease to be strong and believe in themselves.
When I said, 'I'm only 19, but my mind is old' - at that time, when I said that line, I was 18.
You gotta be careful and just learn from your mistakes.
When I was a kid, I used to love to play 'Dig Dug.' It was, like, this little dude, where he digs in the dirt and makes tunnels.
Obama represents one-world government, a.k.a. Neocolonialism. Presidents don't change anything locally - they only deal with foreign policy.
You can never go back to a time and try to recreate that sound, because that time is done.
I've learned to respect Rick Ross' music.
I'm not scared to speak my mind and tell you what it is.
I was a very serious child who never got to enjoy life to the fullest like a normal, healthy kid.
You got a lot of fradulent rebels and revolutionaries who are really false prophets.
I don't like new people coming around me. I'm going to really be leery and watch you and take my time before I embrace you.
I found that preparation is everything when you cook.
I couldn't afford to get sick in prison. My sickle cell is no joke, so I couldn't eat poorly or not exercise. And everything in jail is designed to do the exact opposite.
You have people there from all walks of life: people who made mistakes and have to deal with the consequences, mothers and fathers. You wouldn't expect them to be behind bars.
Just having conversations with God, begging God to make the pain go away, and then the pain wouldn't go away. So I'm like 'Who the hell am I talking to? God is not responding.'
In my lyrics, I used to always state two years ahead. I did that to make it seem like we were ahead of our time - a time capsule almost. It had never been done before.
At 19, I felt like I was 40.
We didn't have any problem with 2Pac. We liked his music.
I just remember the feeling of being dropped from Island and having our hearts broken. Because we were given a chance to put out an album to the world. We got the chance for people to know who we were. We wanted to make our dreams come true and do hip-hop for a living, but we didn't do it right.
When we were making 'Juvenile Hell,' we were listening to the Jungle Brothers, Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, Biz Markie, A Tribe Called Quest.
We started writing songs like 'Shook Ones' and 'Survival of the Fittest' explaining our neighborhood, but more our personal lives.
When my family first moved to Hempstead in the 1960s, they were one of the first black families. It used to be an all-white neighborhood, but there was white flight when the black people with money started moving in. When I was, like, 13 or 14, Hempstead had just become all black, and the poverty became worse and worse.
When we first signed to Loud, we had a 20-song demo. So all of those songs we wanted to put on the album. But we started making new ones, and through process of elimination, we wanted all the new ones. We didn't like the old ones no more.
That's what 'Hell On Earth' was about: we felt that we were living in hell.
All the 'Scarface' beats that you hear Mobb Deep sample, that was my idea.
With Mobb Deep, we have to agree on things. We have to agree that we want to use that beat or agree on the type of song we want to do.
I'm always vocal about people being unique and different in hip-hop.
In the era we came up in, you had to have your own thing.
I like any shoot-'em-up game with guns in it.
'Mortal Kombat' was an ill game. I would always be either Reptile or Scorpion. Those dudes were ill. We used to stay up all night playing.
'Dragon's Lair' was real ill.
My favorite Eminem song is probably 'Lose Yourself' because I can relate to it a lot. That's how I feel every time I write a rhyme.
I used to be cold and emotionless. I believe the disease I was born with made me that way.
A sickle-cell attack would creep up slowly in my ankles, legs, arms, back, stomach, and chest. Sometimes my lips and tongue turned numb, and I knew I was going into a crisis.
All I do is music; that's my sport.
Music and physical activity goes hand in hand. Music and basketball, man.
When we signed to G-Unit, 50 made us sign the paper that says, 'You can't talk about nothing about me.' He makes everybody sign that.
Mobb Deep's music, we represent poverty. That's what made us. That's who made us. That's who brought us up.
I wanna like Obama, but he's all about the world government, world banking, war, and stuff like that. You know what I'm sayin'? He's a phony.
When you are young and rebellious, you don't want to be in the house. You want to be on the block.
It was the camaraderie and the friendships, too, that really drew me to Queensbridge.
I think the sound of 'The Infamous' came naturally from our lifestyle and some of the criminal things we were doing. We always rap about what we're living, and to put a beat to lyrics like those is hard.
You have to find a sound that reflects what our souls feel like inside, how our bodies actually feel. That's why we made our own beats. We couldn't find a producer who could give us the feeling to match our lyrics.