I grew up around electronic instruments. To me, the turntable is an electronic device. At the same time, I had access to drum machines and keyboards through my uncle; then track recorders into computers. At an early age, I was messing with computers more than most hip-hop musicians.

Ali Shaheed Muhammad

Hip-hop originated from the Bronx specifically; that means everything. I'm down the block from where hip-hop was born and raised, so I'm glad I am here and I'm able to represent New York the way I am.

A Boogie wit da Hoodien

York Where Way

I got into DJing and making beats when I was about 17. I was always fascinated by the four elements of hip-hop: you know, writing, rhyming, breakdancing and graffiti.

Abbie Cornish

Men You Writing

When I think of influential females in hip-hop, my mind goes to Foxy Brown, hands down.

Action Bronson

Think Thin T

The tapes we were making would jump around with different styles, just quick parts of different songs. Hip-hop to jazz to funk to whatever else. And in a way, 'Check Your Head' ended up being like one of those pause-tapes.

Ad-Rock

Art Your You

Pitbull is great with brands. Endorsements with hip-hop artists work because hip-hop artists typically set the most trends... It's every brand's goal to be seen in the mainstream, and hip-hop music has become mainstream music.

Adam Kluger

Work Music Men

To be a white kid into hip-hop meant you'd sought it out and you practiced the art. Which meant dedication and diligence, as well as removing yourself at least occasionally from your own comfort zone and circumstances, and from people who looked like you.

Adam Mansbach

Art Zone Yourself

Fundamentally, I'm profoundly influenced by hip-hop, so whatever I do is going to bear that seal.

Adam Mansbach

Men Whatever UN

For me, graffiti writers were always the fascinating eccentrics of hip-hop culture. What they do is secretive by definition, and not remunerative in any way.

Adam Mansbach

Writers Writer Write

Of course, the opposite of white privilege is not blackness, as many of us seemed to think then; the opposite of white privilege is working to dismantle that privilege. But my particular hip-hop generation proved to be very serious about figuring it all out and staying engaged.

Adam Mansbach

Work Art Age

The paradox of being in an industry where other people are usually the gatekeepers: publishers, editors - there are a lot of barriers to having control over your career. But coming out of hip-hop, the mindset was always to create your own.

Adam Mansbach

Car Your You

I was a rapper and a DJ, and if you wanted to be involved in hip-hop, you had to be involved in the sonic, the kinetic and the visual aspects. The visual was graffiti.

Adam Mansbach

You Wanted Want

I came up in hip-hop, where people value the ability to tell it straight.

Adam Mansbach

Where Value Up

Graffiti has an interesting relationship to the broader world of hip-hop: It's part of the culture, but also in a weird way a stepchild of the culture.

Adam Mansbach

Relationship Art World

I'm into my grime, hip-hop, dance, and house music.

Adam Peaty

Music Use Us

I'm a film composer, but I'm a hip-hop guy.

Adrian Younge

T Pose Hop

I like golden-era hip-hop because they were recording on a 2-inch tape. There was dirty, raw sampling. It's nasty. It has a vibe to it.

Adrian Younge

Were Vibe Use

I remember those moments in my life when the tape came out on that Tuesday, and I went to Sam Goody to cop it. And sitting and listening to it. In awe of the music I was listening to, but also imagining this music at the hip-hop clubs and with the homies in the car.

Adrian Younge

Music Mom Men

I don't like to focus on just hip-hop because with hip-hop, I can only do so much; with a vocalist, I can only do so much, but the limitations are varying.

Adrian Younge

Yin Wit Vocal

I always say to people that I left hip-hop in '97, meaning that I departed from listening to predominately hip-hop and just started really getting into records from the late '60s, early '70s. And once I made that change, I realized how much great music was made back in the day, and it started to become apparent how much we've lost in music.

Adrian Younge

Music Great Change

Like with me, like around '97, for Christmas my parents bought me an MPC 2000 sampler and a little eight-track cassette recorder. And I started sampling records and, you know, producing hip-hop beats. And it got to the point where I realized - I innately realized that the music I liked the most was made by people that played instruments.

Adrian Younge

Music Men Christmas

I was really raised on hip-hop, and hip-hop introduced me basically to all the music I listen to now.

Adrian Younge

I got tired of everybody repeating the same phrases in the hip-hop world.

Aesop Rock

November is Hip-Hop History Month, where we give celebration to what hip hop has done to bring together people of the world, people of all nationalities, young people, all the political systems and politicians on the planet.

Afrika Bambaataa

A lot of times, when people say hip-hop, they don't know what they're talking about. They just think of the rappers. When you talk about hip-hop, you're talking about the whole culture and movement. You have to take the whole culture for what it is.

Afrika Bambaataa

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

Afrika Bambaataa

I am one of the founders of Hip-Hop along with my brothers Kool DJ Herc and Grandmaster Flash.

Afrika Bambaataa

What worries me are these so-called radio stations with program directors who don't play all the different flavors of hip-hop. They should play the old with the new, 24/7, 365 days a year. A lot of these program directors are just jiving around and not playing all the good music for the people.

Afrika Bambaataa

House, rap, R&B, disco rock, they are all part of hip-hop culture. Why you ain't playing Kraftwerk along with Jay-Z? That's hip-hop.

Afrika Bambaataa

We used to play a lot of Fela Kuti in the early days of hip-hop. In my DJ sets I'll jump off into rock, salsa, African. I like to play some crazy stuff and see the vibrations of the people.

Afrika Bambaataa

You want to buy cars and houses and castles, all of that's on you and how America has systematized your mind to be into materialism. Hip-hop ain't got nothing to do with that. I'm glad that anybody making money has picked themselves up - I just want them to give some of it back to the community.

Afrika Bambaataa

Hip-hop went through different stages, from the beginning in the streets of the Bronx, to the whole Tri-State area and then to the rest of the United States and the rest of the world.

Afrika Bambaataa

Hip-hop has been hijacked by a Luciferian conspiracy. People have used hip-hop in a lot of ways that cause a lot of mind problems. They use the word wrongfully. They use it to mean a part instead of a whole.

Afrika Bambaataa

I think the most important thing about dance music is the connection. If you put 80,000 people together, no one knows each other, and once the music starts, everyone loves each other. That doesn't happen with a lot of genres. If you go to a hip-hop club, it's not like when one songs comes on that everyone suddenly loves each other.

Afrojack

Most music that comes out of Holland is basically the harder part of dance music - hip-hop, drum'n'bass.

Afrojack

Rap is rhythm and poetry. Hip-hop is storytelling and poetry as well.

Ajay Naidu

It's hard for a liberal to go on between Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, because it's like doing country music after hip-hop. I mean, just, the audience doesn't go from one to the other.

Al Franken

There's more to hip-hop than just trying to make everything rhyme, and you find out in life that everything don't rhyme. The music they're cutting is musically fantastic.

Al Green

I did a couple songs with this hip-hop guy named Tim Dark. He was working in the same studio I've been working in, he heard my music and he said, aw man, I've got to do something with you.

Alan Vega

That's what my music... I'm working on a solo record right now, it's gonna be more hip-hop than anything, like electronic hip-hop, futuristic hip-hop. I'm probably gonna be rapping on it.

Alan Vega

As a kid, I was listening to Aretha Franklin, Etta James and hip-hop as well as music my parents were listening to, like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.

Alanis Morissette

I like songs in all different genres and types. My production and songwriting is everything from pop rock to hip-hop and everything in between.

Alex Clare

The head-banging music gives me a headache. Katy Perry is fun, Rihanna, old-school '90s hip-hop. Salt-N-Pepa. I like listening to that. Get the nerves out before the games.

Alex Morgan

Hip-hop has had this history where the predecessor just is so harsh and not nice to the next coming generation that it creates this separation and this gap.

Ali Shaheed Muhammad

I grew up around electronic instruments. To me, the turntable is an electronic device. At the same time, I had access to drum machines and keyboards through my uncle; then track recorders into computers. At an early age, I was messing with computers more than most hip-hop musicians.

Ali Shaheed Muhammad

When I was a kid, I'd practise Chopin on piano - and I love Chopin! He's my dawg! Then I'd go out on the stoop and blast the radio. I'm from New York, the concrete jungle. Hip-hop influenced me from day one.

Alicia Keys

Tattoos, cornrows, headbands, hip-hop. I never meant to start any trends. I got my butt kicked, but if that meant that the guys who came after me could be themselves, then it was worth it.

Allen Iverson

Salsa, classic rock, soul music, jazz... all of that was a part of my education in making hip-hop music.

Aloe Blacc

Hip-hop educated me about other forms of music, because it sampled from all different styles.

Aloe Blacc

In hip-hop, I wasn't very focused on delivering a message. It was just a string of lines that didn't connect. What I wanted to do is write stories... and affect someone's emotions with that song. I think as a soul singer, I'm able to accomplish that.

Aloe Blacc

I'm a hip-hop dancer, but when I'm in my room it turns into this lyrical nonsense, and I listen to Phil Wickham and India Arie, who has the most precious songs.

Alyson Stoner