Rakim Quotes - Page 3

There's so many different ways to write a rhyme its stupid man. I don't understand why the majority of the rap game sounds the same.

As far as our physical form, the mind is a great temple. But it has a life span and it dies.

When you're trying to please both sides of the fence at the same time you really can't do that.

I had a little more freedom when I started sampling because you could actually do what you wanted to do.

It might sound crazy but you put your money up and take out a little every week. You put yourself on a salary instead of getting $7,000 this week, $20,000 next week and $5,000 the week after that. Take a $1,000. You got your toys, you got everything and your money under your mattress. Break it down and have a salary to take care of you and your family and stretch that money.

Now I got kids and I'm more wise now. Life means more to me than having fun. I'm more calm, more wise, and more cautious.

You have to learn how to take an allowance.

Feed me hip-hop and I start tremblin'

I can take a phrase that's rarely heard/Flip it - now it's a daily word

The man is the captain, the women is the lieutenant and the kids are the soldiers. Like right now I'm not home with my kids. I teach my Wisdom so when I'm not there she takes care of the shorties. Just like the sun shines on the moon, and when the earth rotates and the moon is over here, and the sun is over here, and the sun and its shaded on the side we get light from the moon, showing and proving how we're symbolic to the stars and things of that nature.

I saw a lot when I was young. The first time I got arrested I was twelve years old.

I've been writing for so long I got a lot of different ways to write.

I'm you and you are me. I'm a man and you're a man. When people understand the more they know Self, the real Inner Self of themselves it's the same physical structure you've got. The same things you deal with I deal with. Everything derives from the mind. What's funny is the mind is the hardest question and I guess that's why I'm always writing about it.

And I'll break, when I'm through breakin, I'll leave you broke, Drop the mic when I'm finished, and watch it smoke

So all hail the honorable, microphone phenomenal Persona is unbombable? Trust me son, I continue like a saga do, bringin' you the drama to allow you that the chronicle has just begun.

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.

Tried to put shame in my game to make a name, I'mma put it on a bullet...put it in your brain.

You can hear the seven sins Blowin' through the ghetto wind.

I got one of the illest crews in NY but when I travel it's mostly me and my girl, me and my kids or me and one or two of my dudes but the majority of the time its just me.

Hopefully the rappers can start to open the eyes in the neighborhoods and communities.

Being in this game if you are gonna sell drugs and make records too then as many records you make is gonna be as many people that know you sell drugs. We got the hip hop cops listening now.

I'm one dude and when I make my bed I lay in it but don't stereotype me. Never sold a crumb to this day and I don't do nothing on the side.

I never wanted to do the mixtape circuit and 300,000 people hear it and that's a chapter of my life and when I do another album I'm coming off of that chapter but the whole world didn't hear that chapter so it's like I would have to start over.

There is still consciousness in hip hop.

What I want to do right now is give hip hop back to the hood. Before it was a neighborhood thing where it belonged to the hood and the rappers were reporting and there were rules and parameters. Now it seems like the artist's game.