Vince Staples Quotes

Barack Obama embraced hip-hop, man. That's the way he got through to kids.

Hey, you gotta love a gangsta girl. Even the suburban and preppy girls wanna be gangsta girls. That's the whole gimmick to it. Everybody wants to be a gangsta girl.

Everyone was messaging me like, 'Yo, 'Rubbin Off the Paint' goes hard.' Everybody in school knew it. The teachers know my song.

Hip-hop is such an amazing thing that kids still want to do it. They're not saying, "Ugh, that's the old people's music." No, they're younger than they've ever been that want to get into hip-hop music.

What I actually do put much more weight on, in all honesty, is not being critically acclaimed - it's being respected by my OGs. When I talk to E-40 on the phone, every time I talk to him, I'm like, you know, if he tells me I'm doing good, I'm doing good.

Usually when you hear about rappers in Asia, they always try to be like gangsters and stuff like that and I don't get it.

The mission of '8 Mile' is essentially to garner sympathy for a white rapper involved in an old-school shootout - a rap contest. This may be the final frontier for pop, more unbelievable than the prospect of launching a member of 'N Sync into orbit.

I used to love 'Ladies Night' by Lil' Kim so much that I performed it in school without really knowing what it was about. I just knew that she was getting at a guy and winning.

I grew up with, maybe not the best hip-hop in the world, but a lot of hip-hop. Will Smith was, like, my jam when I was, like, 9 or 10 years old.

I consider 'Dope' a part of the new mainstream.

Youngsters in Punjab don't follow Bollywood. They know about Drake, Rihanna and the relationship between Beyonce and Jay Z.

I was a kid of the '90s, so I was always inspired by Gwen Stefani, especially the 'Spider Web' video.

I was, like, in a rap gang. I loved rap, and it was all around me.

Pop culture mirrors culture, and, I think, as a rapper, hip-hop in a lot of ways mirrors the things that are happening in urban neighborhoods.

I got the name Lil Baby because I always hung around older dudes.

My kids listen to rap, so I try to keep up with as much as I can.

You'll get a kid in Liberia wearing a Tupac T-shirt, and for us, that's zef. People try to say it's like trash, but it's not really trash. It's putting things together you think are cool.

I'm probably going to be ashamed to say this... It was a Sir Mix-a-Lot album. I think I was 12, 13. I had just enough money for the 'My Posse's on Broadway' single, so I bought that single. That was the first thing I bought with my own money.

I feel like the D.C. streets just love Gucci Mane. He's like a hood pastor.

I grew up raised in church, my parents are both traveling ministers. They blocked out MTV which was fine, but I'd find myself figuring out who New Kids On The Block were.

It might take a while but I think the rap game is the people that can do it. We're all role models more than athletes because athletes don't wear clothes like the kid in the hood and they don't walk and talk like the kids in the hood. We're closer to them than anybody because they can look at us and see them.

If I got a dollar every time someone told me to name my future kid 'Batmo' I'd almost have enough to pay for therapy for a kid named Batmo.

Those East Coast rich kids are a different breed, on a fast track to nowhere. Your friends in Seattle are downright Canadian in their niceness. None of you has a cell phone. The girls wear hoodies and big cotton underpants and walk around with tangled hair and smiling, adorned backpacks. Do you know how absolutely exotic it is that you haven’t been corrupted by fashion and pop culture? A month ago I mentioned Ben Stiller, and do you remember how you responded? ‘Who’s that?’ I loved you all over again.

I think America just needs to get real when it comes to the way our kids speak and communicate. They need to understand what happens in rap.

The mall is good for hearing new music because you hear music everywhere. I like to walk around the mall and hear what the kids are listening to, or what's the feel of Middle America, cause that's what the mall is.