Rakim Quotes

But I've been freestyling and messing around with rhyming since I was 13. That's when I really started listening to hip-hop music.

I've been known to drop a spoken-word bit into a song from time to time. But not straight-up rap. I don't know that I have that gift.

If you're really a rapper, you can't stop rapping.

I have to be able to rap. I don't have the look. I don't have the typical slim-dude, fancy-clothes look. That's not me. I have to be able to rap - there is no other choice, or else I get eaten alive.

You know how a person is made for something? Eminem is made for hip-hop. The best rapper is a white man.

I'm not completely at ease at rapping, I can't do it well yet.

I was rapping at eight.

I don't think I'd call myself a rapper.

Some MCs don't take the time to take a beat home or just vibe with it and just figure out, 'How do I attack this track?'

Longevity always come from lyricism. From the people who can actually rap.

Emceeing has always been about making the most intellectual, most creative, wittiest rhyme as possible regardless of any subject. It was always about bringing the best out of yourself.

I'm living proof that there's no age limit to rapping.

A friend of mine encouraged me to try rapping, so I started experimenting with it, writing verses, seeing if I could fit an extra word or syllable into each line without tripping myself up.

I think if you pick up a microphone and you rap, you're a rapper.

When I was growing up, to be an emcee meant to write the most clever, intellectual, and wittiest rap. And that's what we did.

I got a close friend who raps.

I've been a fan of Bunji's freestyling since the first time I saw him perform, back in the early 2000s.

I knew I could rap a little bit, which is not the most unique way for being funny. The more I did it, the better I got at rapping, and then I fell in love with the craft of it, and the possibility that I was a good rapper was very intriguing.

When I did rap and rhyme, it wasn't just a word that rhymed with another one.

To me, rapping is an art.

Ever since I was a kid I've been rapping.

Rappers tend to use words sometimes that just rhyme and don't really mean nothing.

Gibberish rap is - I freestyle all the time, just hangin' out with friends. And sometimes when I'm freestyling, I'll lose my flow, you know, but I'll still wanna - I don't wanna just stop rapping because I lose my flow. So I'll just put in nonsense words till I can bring in regular words again.

If you want to relate me to the newer cats, let's go. Let's go line for line and bar for bar. If it's all about spitting and metaphors and MCing and lyrics and entendres, I will eat 99 percent of you dudes up.

A lot of the younger kids now can rap, but they're scared of the crowd. Mastery of that stage is an MC. I don't know if you've seen any great MCs on stage but when you do it's like wow, this is more than the words to rhymes.