Rakim Quotes

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Rakim

Profession : Musician

Birth : January 28, 1968

I try to stay true to my style, and I understand the foundation of my style and where it came from. But at the same time, you take that experience and learn different ways to write, different ways to turn on that creative energy.

Rakim

Sometimes I write from the end of the verse to the beginning of the verse.

Rakim

I'm not a mainstream artist. But I've seen my kids being born; I've seen them take their first steps, I've seen them grow up and start school. That's worth more to me than any umpteen million dollars.

Rakim

I was an athlete in college - a quarterback, a leader - so people telling me what to do doesn't work.

Rakim

I stick to my guns - that's what keeps me going as an artist. Stevie Wonder never changed from what he wanted to do, and each new album that came along was dope.

Rakim

I'm very smart with my paper! I stopped buying things for myself a long time ago - now I just buy things for my kids or my wife.

Rakim

Maino is an artist that I feel walks what he talks - you can tell what he raps about and what he's been through is very similar. You've got a lot of rappers that rap about what they've heard or seen, but I think Maino is one of the rappers that has actually lived it.

Rakim

One of the main reasons why it didn't work out for me and Aftermath is because I felt my music should sound one way, and they felt it should sound another. But, I learned a lot from watching Dre, and when I left California, I knew it was time for me to get my own label.

Rakim

There are certain things that I wish people knew - certain things that I feel I started and certain things that I'm responsible for. Sometimes you wish people knew where a certain style of rapping came from or who was the first one to say whatever.

Rakim

You've really got to appreciate an artist that's really outspoken and feels like his music can change the world.

Rakim

I try to make my flow sound like a John Coltrane solo.

Rakim

I had nothing but respect for Pac.

Rakim

I was an underground artist, but the underground status was successful. Coming from where I came from to see where rap is now, now artists are selling from a million to eight million copies.

Rakim

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

Rakim

To me, sometimes things outside of rap inspire me to rap.

Rakim

Music, life, a lot of the things that we go through in the world, a lot of questions that we have about the world inspires me.

Rakim

As a young artist, especially in rap and at that time that I came out, originality was big.

Rakim

My thing was, I loved music. I played music: I played the saxophone. So the little bit of music knowhow I had, I tried to implement that in every thing I did, from my style, my cadence, the way I tried to pause and stagnate it; that all came from John Coltrane and listening to jazz albums. Trying to rhyme like a jazz player.

Rakim

We gotta let hip-hop grow. We gotta let it go through its different phases throughout the different places that's accepting it.

Rakim

I'm definitely one of them artists that loves putting the track on and having fun with it, but in my own way.

Rakim