I'm a Jewish kid who grew up loving hip hop in NY.
I've been writing songs since I was 10 years old and always had a penchant for rhyming. I started listening to hip hop through my friends and fell in love with it.
I've been writing songs and making music since I was probably ten years old...so my inspirations back then, I don't know - I guess it was something that was innate. I was really shaped to make hip-hop music and love hip hop.
I feel like I have a very unique perspective especially for someone in the hip-hop genre. I'm not afraid to explore it, and how my upbringing then shapes my music and being a New York kid and all of that stuff...that's really the most unique thing I can offer to the music in general.
My shows will always be inspired by hip hop culture and my upbringing within it.
If you are successful because of Hip Hop, which I am, then you have to recognize that Hip Hop is nothing if not a product of the street, therefore you have to give something back.
Hip-hop has a feeling element, it's not just about knowing music. It's not like classical music or jazz where you can go on raw energy.
Hip-hop, you can't really do that when you're in your 50s.
Like any great art, the culture of hip-hop has changed with the times. With the state of technology, music is more accessible and freely exchanged. For hip-hop to grow while keeping a sense of integrity, the essence of the culture has to be handed down and respected like any high form of art.
I wouldn't even say the internet is a gift and a curse for hip-hop. All types of music are bootlegged, including movies which are bootlegged.
I was a hip-hop head. When I really found my own lane in music, it was hip-hop. I wanted to make hip-hop music. And I did, I made a lot of hip-hop music.
People who reach certain levels of frailty, more important than getting their mammogram, more important than getting their blood pressure tweaked, they're at high risk of falling. If they fall and break their hip, they not only die sooner, they die miserably.
I thought I was writing for a fairly hip, intelligent crowd; I just thought there were more of them out there. But they're not. They're not out there waiting. They're not gonna use their intelligence on your book.
I have enough of a fan-base that I don't feel it is going to evaporate. I don't feel like I have a fleeting fan-base. I don't feel like it is coming from some trend-driven thing where I'm no longer going to be hip. I've come and gone through all that.
I've always been able to write rhymes and that would be like when you consult with your girl. When I'm mad and s - t like that I would throw headphones on and close my room door, when I'm mad I just close the door with my girl and f - k her. In so many different ways hip-hop has been like my girl and it's always been there to hold me down.
Sometimes I'm just a little bit too honest. There was some things that were going on behind the scenes that I didn't like because it's not what hip-hop is about. Hip-hop is about honesty and it's about being real to the people, and I kinda felt like there's some instances where some artists aren't 100% honest with the people. Their integrity is lacking sometimes. And sometimes it comes out.
Mix-tapes are something that have been going on for a while. They've been pretty important to hip-hop. It's the way we advertise our music to the public for free.
You literally can shoot someone in the face on television and a 7-year-old can watch it. But you can't show the slight of a man's hip, because dear God, someone might think of sex. And while we all hope our kids grow up to have sex, we do not hope they grow up to shoot someone in the face.
I had Ice Cube on my first album, "Bunker," and then I did a remix for Snoop Dogg. I've worked with Grandmaster Flash and Pharrell. It's a different work process and there's a different take with how you produce [hip-hop].
Many people in the neighborhood liked hip-hop and house music, and I couldn't play that. You can't perform that on guitar or drums, which was what I was playing, at the time. But, I got so much from mariachi bands that were constantly playing in the neighborhood.
Not to just say you need to be a good person - but, better, find the good that you already have in yourself and don't deny that, don't let the world talk you out of the good things because it's not hip or cool. Sooner or later, you have to live with yourself.
Yeah loads of bruises and welts, usually around the hip, arse, thigh region and elbows. Elbows got knocked up big time, but it was so much fun. I hadn't done a meaty action film in seven or eight years, so it was fun to explore that aspect of storytelling again.
Hip-hop is more than music, it's a culture. It's bigger than hit songs.
From the time she was born, until she was fifteen, I didn't know where I left off and she began. We were joined at the hip or the heart or the brain.
The day that I ever become hip... please shoot me and put me outta my misery!
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