Rza Quotes

Thug Life to me is dead.

Many areas of Los Angeles have gang problems.

A lot of people have that story that they used to sell crack or shoot people; that's nothing new. But honestly, if that was me, I probably still wouldn't be doing that because it's so many people that's doing that. It just gets old when you hear a million raps about how many ways I could shoot you. So I just try to be more creative and come with something new because I actually care about the music.

Cut throats, gun smoke, dope, and hoes, is what controls niggas souls.

Me, myself, I was a part of gang bangin', you know what I'm sayin'?

I understand that Detroit was a pretty rough place to grow up in the '70s and '80s.

I rap about Memphis and what a dangerous spot that is.

The murder rate in Chicago is skyrocketing, and you see who's doing it and perpetrating it - they all look like Chief Keef. When it comes to the point that, you know, that kids who are doing the killings, and they're kids 13 to 19 years old, and you can replicate that in New Orleans, you can replicate that in Oakland. All the kids look the same.

Shootouts are not gunfights of honor, they're gang wars and racial riots.

It was a very intense and stressful situation. There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we'd play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day.

I won't forget the hood. I won't forget the days of catching a bullet on the way to the mailbox or bricks with death threats that somehow made their way through the window.

I'll be in 'The Get Down' from the creator Baz Luhrmann, and it takes place in the '70s with South Bronx kids growing up at the rise of hip-hop and really when the city was at its financial worst. It's about teens struggling with violence, drugs and gangs and trying to find solace in music and all that good stuff.

America's a gangbanger country. We got our gang, and everything else is irrelevant.

Whether it is kids carrying knives because they are in gangs or kids carrying knives because they are afraid of gangs, it is the gang culture that underpins the problem.

Mike Tyson and I came up together in the streets, and being around people like him, I learned what goes on behind the scenes.

I go by the name of Polo G and I'm from the near North Side of Chicago, the 1300 block of Hudson Avenue.

Gangsta rap often reaches higher than its ugliest, lowest common denominator, misogyny, violence, materialism and sexual transgression are not its exclusive domain. At its best, this music draws attention to complex dimensions of ghetto life ignored by most Americans. Indeed, gangsta rap's in-your-face style may do more to force America to confront crucial social problems than a million sermons or political speeches.

And Alpo ordered guys to slaughter guys, and the whole Harlem was in tears when Rich Porter died.

I didn't create thug life, I diagnosed it

As long as there's a demand for gangsta rap, it will be supplied.