Ice T Quotes

Growing up, I didn't really like folk music - I wasn't a fan of Bob Dylan. I grew up mostly listening to rap and hip-hop; it was this new form of music.

I am not a rapper. And I believe people in India are not even clear with the whole idea of rap or what it signifies.

All my friends were rappers, so I just thought I might as well take a shot at it.

I love folk. I love rap.

Music helps shape the way people think about the world and act in the world.

He was not hip-hop's most gifted emcee. Still, Shakur may be the most influential and compelling rapper of them all, he was more than the sum of his artistic parts.

Be serious. Folk songs are serious. That's what Pete Seeger told me. 'Arlo, I only wanna tell you one thing. Folk songs are serious.' And I said, 'Right.'

I think that hip-hop should be spelled with a capital "H," and as one word. It's the name of our black people culture, and it's the name of our identity and consciousness. I think hip-hop is not a product, but a culture. I think rap is a product, but when hip-hop becomes a product, that's slavery, because you're talking about people's souls. To me, that's the biggest problem.

I want to be just a musician and songwriter, and hopefully known as a very good one. I love a lot of music that's considered folk music, but I also love a lot of music that's considered punk or considered rap. I don't mind being called a folk singer. But it seems a bit limiting. I want to be able to write whatever kind of song I want.

All serious writers want the obvious rewards: fame, money, women, love -- and most of all, an audience!

Rather than trying to put an end to Eminem or some other rapper, politicians should think about why they're rapping. It's easier to try to censor some kid who's swearing about poverty than it is to stop the poverty.

I rap for listeners, blunt heads, fly ladies and prisoners

With so much drama in the L-B-C, It's kinda hard bein Snoop D-O-double-G

Art is one of man's few serious activities.

But this is one of the things that makes rap at its best so human. It doesn't force you to pretend to be only one thing or another, to be a saint or a sinner. It recognizes that you can be true to yourself and still have unexpected dimensions and opposing ideas. Having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is the most common thing in the world. The real bullshit is when you act like you don't have contradictions inside you, that you're so dull and unimaginative that your mind never changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places.

Eminem has talent, and his talent is the thing that influences many young people who would have never gone anywhere near rap. White kids in different parts of the world use him as a barometer and the standard to live up to. In some ways, Eminem is an artist who has ushered in a new movement.

Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.

On reflection, some things do super well because they hit with the time. Some things do super well because they are able to activate a kind of echo chamber or bandwagon or cascade - they didn't particularly hit with the time. Some things are just too astonishingly good to not hit the top. Those three explanations, with respect to the Star Wars phenomenon, seem to me all to pass the plausibility test, and to explore them, with respect to Star Wars, I think casts light not just on the saga of our time, but also on everything about our culture.

I hadn't really thought about the kind of music I wanted to make. I was just making raps and stuff. I thought that was the coolest thing in the world.

I am to hip-hop what Obama is to politics

I know like the Wiz Khalifah one, got me excited because I like his music, and its almost like you know I can relate to his music, so I feel like dang if he listens to my stuff and thought it was good then maybe I'm as good as him, you know what I mean?

So for instance in rap music, you very often hear words that would seem very racist, or very misogynous or very homophobic but in some of those instances, the words are being taken back or redefined so that they lose their injurious quality.

When I started getting into West Coast rap - The Game, then I started studying a lot of Tupac Shakur and watching his interviews.