Street Credibility Quotes

Sometimes street knowledge can be as important as book knowledge.

Swag defines an artist, period. Lil Wayne has his super-tattooed pierces and dreads swag. Jay-Z has his New York, grown man, Beyonce and 40/40 Club swag.

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.

I remember Bumpy Knuckles came in wearing all mink everything and said, 'Yo, when I spit my verse, I gotta pull my guns out and aim them.' He was serious! I told him that I was going to duck in the event that those guns accidentally went off. He pulled out the twin glocks, spit his verse in one take and said, 'I've got a meeting to go to' and left!

I never felt like 'I'm an underground dude' or 'I can only be hot in New York.'

Girl they love me like I'm Prince, like the new kid with the crown. Bunch of underground kings, thought you knew how we get down.

I would not consider myself to be a quote unquote real New York rapper. I don't even like New York rappers.

In order to survive, I created a certain type of aura about myself that I was the baddest chick walking down the street. Anytime somebody underestimates me, Thug Rose comes out.

When Big Meech and everybody got indicted, hustling died. Keep it trill.

I know that I'm kind of a big deal online, but I think that some of that is starting to seep into the streets, and you want to kind of continue to make sure it does that.

What people don't understand is joining a gang ain't bad, it's cool, it's fine. When you in the hood, joining a gang it's cool because all your friends are in the gang, all your family's in the gang. We're not just killing people every night, we're just hanging out, having a good time.

Every ghetto kid that walks the earth can see something in KRS-One that reminds him of himself.

You can listen to the records and know: We're really street.

Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years it's a name that the streets taught me a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name and it's time to expand and move on.

I had a lot of respect for Prodigy. He brought the hood to the booth. When we were trying to shape this rap thing into something, he was one of the cats I respected for bringing the hood into the booth.

When I'm not in the booth, I'm one of the most laid-back guys. But growing up, I liked DMX, Jay-Z, 50 Cent, and T.I. - dudes that went all out on the track. My first songs were energetic because I liked their energy.

When 'And Then What' was made, Jeezy already had a street appeal, but 'And Then What' put him on the national appeal.

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

Rap is from the streets and I'm from the streets. That's why a lot of people accept me.

One thing I noticed working in the Bronx is that leaders come in the craziest places. They don't always show up at community board meetings. Sometimes it's just the guys on the corner that the boys on the block respect.

Pac get busy. People can't take nothing from him. On the lyrics, he get busy, straight up.

I still am very street - I just have nicer clothes. I'm not ashamed of that.

New York gave me hell for that 'Purple Swag,' man. They didn't respect me until 'Peso.'

Every city in the world always has a gang, a street gang, or the so-called outcasts.

In the hip-hop community, it's about how real are you, or how strong can you be, and really my music just reflects me. If you can accept me, then you can accept my music.