You grow, you mature, you live, and you learn. You get a little wiser, and you learn better ways to handle things.
Rakim
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.
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.
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 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.
Everything I did on the 'Paid in Full' album and those first three albums, I wrote everything right in the studio.
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.
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.
When I started rhyming, my favorite rhythms were from John Coltrane and some of the things he did on sax. And certain rhythms that I hear on drums, I try to emulate with my words, dropping on the same patterns that them beats or them notes would hit.
Jada, Styles P, the LOX, period. You throw on one of their joints... I'm in the whip; I try to keep my cool in the whip. I don't like bouncing around, getting my crazy on, but it's certain joints you gotta wild out. Roll the window down, blast the joints, let it be heard. That's one of them groups that bang it out.
My mother sang jazz and opera - she even performed at the Apollo on Amateur Night.
We gotta let hip-hop grow. We gotta let it go through its different phases throughout the different places that's accepting it.
Hip-hop has taken a lot of different routes throughout the years, man. I've been around since 1986.
Sometimes you can't forgive, but you try to forget.
No Doubt is one of the groups that I think everybody listens to, man, and everybody loves Gwen Stefani.
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!
New York is responsible for bringing that raw, that real gritty hip-hop, because we... originated it.
Eminem is a master.
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.'
I stick to my guns - that's what keeps me going as an artist. Stevie Wonder never changed from what he wanted to do, and each new album that came along was dope.
Age don't count in the booth.
I got a lot of vinyl, a lot of music in general in the house.
You can't have 12 records on your album and none of them sound alike. You gotta kind of have something to make them say, 'That sounds like Rakim.'
Playing the sax and then enjoying jazz music, man - it's like I learned how to find words inside of the beat.
I try to make my flow sound like a John Coltrane solo.
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.
To know that I was being heard on the radio, it made me feel as if I was, I guess, spread across New York. It was incredible.
As a young artist, especially in rap and at that time that I came out, originality was big.
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.'
People always tell me that they grew up with me - like I'm their brother or uncle or some other family member. That keeps me going.
I was an underground artist, but the underground status was successful. Coming from where I came from to see where rap is now, now artists are selling from a million to eight million copies.
Subconsciously, Islam took over me, so it was like eighty or ninety percent of the fabric of the person I was.
The truth never wears out.
I'm a fan of Jay-Z, from the negotiating table to the booth.
We need a few more Kanyes, people that's really passionate about hip-hop and who keep it alive.
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.
Maino is an artist that I feel walks what he talks - you can tell what he raps about and what he's been through is very similar. You've got a lot of rappers that rap about what they've heard or seen, but I think Maino is one of the rappers that has actually lived it.
I'm not a mainstream artist. But I've seen my kids being born; I've seen them take their first steps, I've seen them grow up and start school. That's worth more to me than any umpteen million dollars.
I'm not in that state of mind that I was back in '86 - hip-hop is not in that state of mind that it was back in '86. Times change. I change.
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.
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.
To me, sometimes things outside of rap inspire me to rap.
You know, 'Paid in Full' is a classic album, man. It kind of got me to where I am now, so I can never get tired of 'Paid in Full.'
As I grew up, a lot of the music was made to uplift the spirit.
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.
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.
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.
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'm very smart with my paper! I stopped buying things for myself a long time ago - now I just buy things for my kids or my wife.
The young kids out there doing their thing, I can't knock them.
