Rakim
You grow, you mature, you live, and you learn. You get a little wiser, and you learn better ways to handle things.
The golden age was when people were starting to understand what hip-hop was and how to use it. I was lucky to come up then. Everybody wanted to be original and have substance; it was somewhat conscious... There was an integrity that people respected.
Sometimes you can't forgive, but you try to forget.
Lil Wayne is doing his thing, and so is Drake.
I was heavily influenced by Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Caz, but I kind of wanted to take it somewhere else.
Without no disrespect to any artist, there's a lot of degrading music out there as far as degrading the culture and degrading society as well. That's individuals that choose to make that kind of music.
The truth never wears out.
Age don't count in the booth.
We need the media to know that some of us are really passionate about music.
Subconsciously, Islam took over me, so it was like eighty or ninety percent of the fabric of the person I was.
Playing the sax and then enjoying jazz music, man - it's like I learned how to find words inside of the beat.
I don't believe in writer's block. I'll get stuck, but being stuck, I'll still write a verse. If you know where you're going, you can always start from there and work your way back.
My aunt Ruth Brown was a jazz musician. I got hooked on it at a young age, understanding what John Coltrane was doing playing two notes on the saxophone at the same time, which is impossible.
My thing was, I loved music. I played music: I played the saxophone. So the little bit of music knowhow I had, I tried to implement that in every thing I did, from my style, my cadence, the way I tried to pause and stagnate it; that all came from John Coltrane and listening to jazz albums. Trying to rhyme like a jazz player.
I've always tried to insert consciousness and spirituality in my records, interpreting the writings of all cultures and religions and how they apply to life in modern times.
As a young artist, especially in rap and at that time that I came out, originality was big.
Eminem is a master.
My approach to writing rhymes went hand in hand with the music. I'd try to make different rhythms with my rhymes on the track by tripping up patterns, using multi-syllable words, different syncopations. I'd try to be like a different instrument.
When you listen to old-school music, you can smell your mother's food in the kitchen. You can feel where you was when you first heard that song. That's what's beautiful about music. It's for everyone, but we all have individual memories that make us love it.
I had a lot of respect for Prodigy. He brought the hood to the booth. When we were trying to shape this rap thing into something, he was one of the cats I respected for bringing the hood into the booth.
I started studying in '85 and got knowledge of self and started spitting. What was going on was taking the understanding of what I was reading and applying it with my life and applying it with my rhymes.
Hip-hop has taken a lot of different routes throughout the years, man. I've been around since 1986.
My thing is, you have to let young artists be young artists.
The young kids out there doing their thing, I can't knock them.
I can't look at TV without seeing something that's been influenced by rap. Even commercials for cereal. When I was small, I was a fan of cartoon characters - now the cartoon characters are rapping!
My mother sang jazz and opera - she even performed at the Apollo on Amateur Night.
I always say a rapper is like a halfback in the NFL. You got about seven years, then it's a wrap.
People think the older you get, the wacker you get. I think the older I get, the better I get.
Back in the day, rappers were 'bump bump bump ba bump ba bump.' They was rhyming like that, but I was like, 'bababa bump bump babum ba babump bababa bump.'
I love what I live, and I live Islam, so I applied it to everything I do. I applied it to my rhymes, and I felt that I wanted the people to know what I knew.
When I was in high school, the energy in hip-hop at that point was the park energy... I was just trying to develop my style at that point, and I think, when you're trying to find your style, you find yourself.
I love, you know, a lot of jazz, John Coltrane.
You come up, you love music, and then business interferes.
When me and Eric did songs back in the day, we didn't go and sit down in front of no A&R. We made our album, and then, when we finished, we handed it in, and then we picked the best song for the first single.
Everything I did on the 'Paid in Full' album and those first three albums, I wrote everything right in the studio.
I'm a fan of Jay-Z, from the negotiating table to the booth.
I just appreciate the love that I get and support from hip-hop.
I love what I do. I'm still humble.
Every generation wants that real hip-hop. And I've always been able to bring that.
When you look at hip-hop, I want to do that: to spit fire and take our best from the ashes to build our kingdom; to recognize all the regional styles, conscious lyrics, the tracks, underground, mainstream, the way we treat each other. Lose the garbage and rebuild our scene.
I try to support my kids in what they do and, at the same time, not push them towards anything.
No Doubt is one of the groups that I think everybody listens to, man, and everybody loves Gwen Stefani.
Being a new artist, I was trying to make a good album and hope that people like Kool Moe Dee and Melle Mel and some of the firstborns appreciated it. I was being influenced by them brothers there. That's where I got my start and my first listen.
I was always a laid-back, subdued person, and I just try to let that speak through my music.
Maybe I'm too sensitive to the struggle, but I think a lot of people that listen to music are trying to escape.
As I grew up, a lot of the music was made to uplift the spirit.
I love Jay-Z, I love Kanye, and I praise the way he's been able to bring more business out of the jungle.
Social media gives a lot of people a platform where they can express their feelings. I like to do mine through songs. I let info build up. In some way, it translates into paper whenever I sit down.
You know, I got kids. I got sons, and I try to tell them, 'Look, man, when you in the car and you get pulled over, hands on the steering wheel. 'Yes, sir. No sir.' Your job is to either wind up in jail, so I can come get you, or be able to pull off. That's your job.'
The laws are gonna have to change. And it's 2016. We can't keep using all the laws that was made back in the 1700s. We're gonna have to understand that times have changed.