A lot of underground hip-hop will inspire me as far as rhyme patterns - really wordy, intelligent lyrics.
I heard when I talk, they all listen, They hang on every word from the God, they all Christians. I baptize 'em with lines, this is y'all christenin' Bless with the gift of my presence, this y'all's Christmas.
Eminem is like the godfather of the hip-hop game.
I've always been able to do sprinkles of hip-hop here and there in all my albums, but I'm not sure how my fans are gonna feel about coming out first with something that's so hip-hop.
I know nothing about hip-hop... There's only so many times you can grab your crotch and prance around stage. I'm gonna get slammed now for this.
The big change was reggae and hip-hop, which came along after Split Enz had started. When Bob Marley first visited New Zealand, he lit a fuse that is still burning very brightly. The Maori people particularly honor reggae music in a very big way. So there is a strong reggae scene and a strong hip-hop scene, especially among Samoans. There's still plenty of quirky stuff around. No one expects to make much money here, so it definitely does encourage an underground sense.
I always did poetry, and [rap music is] pretty much hip-hop melody with poems.
You would be surprised how many people that are very passionate about classical music are deeply involved in Hip Hop. You would think Jazz would be the natural associative, but it's extraordinary what kind of crossed-genre associations we are finding in digital media. And even as I'm talking about it, I find myself speaking very much more about how people are accessing that which, what I do, rather than me being preoccupied trying to market something that I do to them.
I played a little bit of everything. I got Ace of Bass, hip-hop songs, and dance hall [music].
Life is like a box of chocolates, you fill your body with toxins, And amoxicillin and penicillin to cure your illness. But in realness? These medical companies will get you monthly Prescribing me pills that make me ill, just to comfort me.
I love hip-hop; I love Sleigh Bells. I also love classical music and musical theater.
Flows that go against the grain with a story so compellin' I should mind The People's Court, snatch the mic from Doug Llewellyn
But there's so many things in life like women, like children, like God and family that transcends the world of hip-hop.
We speak the love language, they speak from pain and anguish. Some don't love theyselves, so they perception is tainted.
Hip hop has always been, for us, for artists who are pure to the craft - any place overseas, whether it's Australia, any place in Asia, Germany, Africa, it becomes something where you can still go and work. Hip hop is an import culture. We're spoiled by it here. It's homegrown.
I don’t think that early hip hop stood out to be a social critique. A lot of fans of mine think that hip hop’s ultimate responsibility is to critique social structures.
Hopefully, we learn to appreciate hip-hop here so that it doesn't go the way of jazz.
By the time you get into other kinds of music - R&B, country, or whatever - it becomes something that's romantic. It becomes something unattainable. Never-ending undying love. And in hip hop, we're still taking direct inspiration.
Why give you the cure when the disease makes money?
The materialism, the brashness, the misogyny - everything in hip-hop is amplified. Misogyny is a good example of something that is completely amplified in hip-hop. I do think there is more than enough of a balance, though, for fans who are willing to search it out.
I like hip-hop, but I don't like concerts. There's like sweat, on people's backs.
There are rooms for traditional and contemporary and hip hop Gospel music.
I live in a neighborhood that's really filled with sound - there's a lot of Jamaican auto body shops, and the guys next door play hip hop.
When I started to make music at the end of the '90s, I saw myself highly influenced by hip-hop and techno, but I wanted to apply these ideas to something from the local sound; something that had identity, that would say who we were and where we came from.
For me the top music though has to be Rock or Hip Hop and artists like Kanye West.
