J. Cole Quotes about Rap

In this life ain't no happy endings; Only pure beginnings followed by years of sinning and fake repentance.

I gotta make a move, I gotta do this now, If they don't know your dreams, they can't shoot 'em down.

They say time is money but really it's not If we ever go broke, then time is all we got And we can't make that back, no you can't make that back

You hate it before you played it. I already forgave ya.

When I first started rapping, when I switched my style to more like a punch line style - this is when I'm like 13 years old - and I switched it to this real wordy - I was trying to rap like Canibus and like Eminem. It was real lyrical, real wordy and punch lines and, when I would come up with these punch lines and spit 'em in these cyphers, the minute the cyphers would be like, "Ohhh" and everybody would break away, it was a new feeling for me. It was like, "Oh, yo, you see what I just did?" I was addicted to that feeling, and I still love that feeling.

Rhyme patterns are nothing without meanings to the words. A lot of rappers can do those flows, but the raps aren't really about anything - which is cool sometimes, but to have the flow and the message is one of my favorite things.

In my mind, New York was the place where they had the underground rap shows and I could get in on some ciphers and just rap. This whole fantasy world I had created in my head about New York just from listening to the music my whole life, like, I'ma go up there and do that. But when I came up here, there was none of that, that scene was dead.

The music becomes more pure and soulful when it's true, and it has to be true these days with the way the internet works, and the way the game works, everyone wants authentic raps.

I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I'm conscious of the mainstream without selling out.

In hip-hop, there's not a lot of love. There's not a lot of love being spread. It's always like 'I'm stuntin' on you raps, or I'm better than you raps.' It's not a lot of 'Yo man, I idolize you raps.'

I wanna show you I can out-rap your favorite rappers. I wanna show you I can out-produce your favorite producers. So I'm constantly getting better and I understand that there's always room for growth, especially in quality, sonic quality.

When you're a rapper, just a rapper, you have to kind of settle for whatever comes your way - if a beat is hot, you wanna rap on it, period.

I still wanna rap better than everybody else, and I wanna say important things.