B.G. was just like his lyrics.
I'm the greatest game-spitter of all time. I talk about the swell, the block, the 'hood. I'm a street commentator. I narrate how people live. That's E-40.
The rap game without me would be like woofers without bass.
I'm not tryin' to come off as the best lyricist.
The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it's a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.
My approach to writing rhymes went hand in hand with the music. I'd try to make different rhythms with my rhymes on the track by tripping up patterns, using multi-syllable words, different syncopations. I'd try to be like a different instrument.
When I am writing fiction, I believe I am much better organized, more methodical - one has to be when writing a novel. Writing poetry is a state of free float.
Lil Wayne, that was one of my main influences, music-wise, because of his wordplay and metaphors.
The vibe on 'Starboy' comes from that hip-hop culture of braggadocio, from Wu-Tang and 50 Cent, the kind of music I listened to as a kid.
Hip hop has always been braggin' and boasting and 'I'm better at you than this' and 'I'm better at you than that.'
I don't think rap really fits in to 'American Idol' in the sense that I believe rap is an art form in itself more akin to poetry, more akin to drama, if you will.
I never knew anything about rapping.
I don't really write. I'm an on-the-spot type of person. This beat, let's listen to it; let's vibe. And then I'll do a melody, and then we'll go back and do it.
Rap - it's a childhood passion. Writing rhymes, it's something that I was doing before rap records even existed. And I will continue to write until I can't write anymore.
People compare me to Kendrick. I've seen comparisons with Jay-Z, with Nas, with Chance The Rapper. I get a lot of Eminem comparisons.
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?'
Rap is very competitive. I just think I'm light years better than anybody.
I'm a different type of rapper. I work more than the average rapper.
Lyrics are really, really hard, I think, or at least they're really hard for me. Some people can channel lyrics faster. I find them very hard to find, so because of it, they take me a long time, and I really think about them.
I see myself as a songwriter and a poet.
Hip-hop has survived as a sonic practice more than anything else. It's an approach to music-making based in sampling and rhyming over beats, that's proven far more versatile than its detractors thought it would.
I don't really write any of my raps down. The same, Kanye don't write any of his raps down. Common. It's easy that way. For me, personally, I figure I will lose some of the inspiration in the time of me writing it down, or I'll say it a certain way because I wrote it a certain way.
Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.
I always wrote poems when I was a little girl, and I loved hip hop music, and I kind of just started writing poems over beats, and that's when I started rapping.
Ever since I was a kid I've been rapping.
