Quote

Rap is rhythm and poetry. Hip-hop is storytelling and poetry as well.

Rap is just somebody getting something off his chest. That's all it is.

Rap is poetry set to music. But to me it's like a jackhammer.

Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.

It's bad poetry executed by people that can't sing. That's my definition of Rap.

I think rap music is rap music. I mean, are there heavy writing aspects of it? Absolutely. In a sense, is it poetry? Yeah. I've heard that so much, growing up in a house with poetry. But I think people like to use that as a shortcut for who's good and who's not. It's like the word 'lyrical' - 'lyrical' is the worst word in the entire world.

Rap is a gimmick, but I'm for the hip-hop, the culture.

Rap was started by black people and, thus, is at the foundation of black culture. So people cannot always wrap their minds around someone like me being inspired by it. But if you listen to the things we're saying, they're authentically us.

I write poetry, and I put it to a beat - I mean, that's what they call rap.

The roots of rap are originally ghetto-ised or extremely working class. So when you're an artist who's making something which isn't how its mainstream appearance should be, there's always these strange questions of authenticity and what you have to do to be 'real' as a rapper.