Top 82 Best Hip Hop Quotes
#1. Hip hop scholarship must strive to reflect the form it interrogates, offering the same features as the best hip hop: seductive rhythms, throbbing beats, intelligent lyrics, soulful samples, and a sense of joy that is never exhausted in one sitting.
Michael Eric Dyson
#2. Your best work involves timing. If someone wrote the best hip hop song of all time in the Middle Ages, he had bad timing.
Scott Adams
#3. Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history, and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such topics.
Michael Eric Dyson
#4. No one can identify the uninformed until they voice their ignorance about a topic. Silence is a fool's best friend. Sadly, he is often too foolish to realize it.
Carlos Wallace
#5. What does it take to get you on board with building this district to mirror Coral Gables or the Hamptons?
Thomas Barr Jr.
#6. Award shows, like the Grammys, were tough on us early in hip-hop, not even televising our categories or splitting them up on best male or female or any of that. We had to earn them.
Queen Latifah
#7. You know how a person is made for something? Eminem is made for hip-hop. The best rapper is a white man.
Curtis Jackson
#8. I still love old-school hip-hop, but there hasn't been a lot that I've taken from the new stuff.
Kid Rock
#9. I was fed by the music I listened to as a kid. Hip-hop fed me psychologically, spiritually, politically. I learned from that music.
Saul Williams
#10. People say, 'Grimm, you've been shot like 50.
So why don't you just rhyme like 50?
Then, you could get the money like 50,
Otherwise, before you see success ... you'll be 50.'
MF Grimm
#11. In my world, even sure bets are not certain;
'Cause you'll get the picture, then find out it's the cropped version.
Joe Budden
#12. 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.
Nick Cannon
#13. Pitbull is great with brands. Endorsements with hip-hop artists work because hip-hop artists typically set the most trends ... It's every brand's goal to be seen in the mainstream, and hip-hop music has become mainstream music.
Adam Kluger
#14. Not to sound cynical, but all you ever learn in prison is how to be a better criminal.
Ras Kass
#15. I have considered rap music stars, and there is one in my new book, Lovers and Players, and there is also a hip-hop music mogul who I think you will like a lot.
Jackie Collins
#16. Hip hop is the new rock n' roll, you know what I mean? And anybody who doesn't think that is just sort of living in the past. It's all just American music, really, when you get right down to it.
Dan Auerbach
#17. Hip-hop is definitely not what it used to be, which was creative, original music.
Missy Elliott
#18. On the square ... I'm not riffin' like Andy Griffith,
Just fed up, goin' head up, with competition.
Positive K
#19. There's no real outlet for making Hip-Hop in Alabama. You need to travel to get heard. You really need to be working though. You need to be going at it every day and getting yourself seen, getting yourself out there on the road, doing shows, making music. It's all about being on your grind.
Yelawolf
#20. The question 'Why white kids love hip-hop?' forces us immediately to deal with the historical weight of race in America. On the surface people see hip-hop and race as nothing new. I think the ways young white Americans are engaging hip-hop suggest something more.
Bakari Kitwana
#21. I can think of no one more relevant and credible in the hip-hop community to build upon Def Jam's fantastic legacy and move the company into its next groundbreaking era.
Jay-Z
#22. We live in a society that refuses to set a standard for what we will allow American entertainment to expose to our children. I think we need to set a standard that is entertainment industry wide, not just limited to hip-hop.
Bakari Kitwana
#23. There just needs to be a gay rapper. He doesn't have to be flamboyant, just a rapper who identifies as gay - who's better than everybody. Unfortunately hip-hop is so competitive that in order for fringe groups to get in, you gotta be better than whoever's the best.
Talib Kweli
#24. 'Hamilton' is one of the best things I've ever seen on a stage, and for a guy who loves American history, hip-hop and theater, it was pure bliss.
Cory Booker
#25. Lyrical lecture, word architecture,
Rap director, the best in my sector.
Microphone cool chief, releasin the smooth speech ...
I get nasty with a pen and some loose leaf.
Lord Finesse
#26. MC's they retreat cause they know I can beat 'em,
And eat 'em in a battle and the ref won't cheat 'em.
I'm the best takin' out all rookies,
So forget Oreos ... eat Cool J cookies.
LL Cool J
#27. Oh My God, the [hip-hop] videos! The imagery is so awful! I just can't get with it at all. The best thing I can say about it is that sometimes you have to see that kind of stuff so as to have a more balanced view about why it's so bad.
Alicia Keys
#28. That's the unwritten rule in hip-hop. If I get on a record with you, I want to smash you. That's it. Every MC knows that. If I'm on a track with you, I want to be the best on the track. That's just how it is in hip-hop.
Ja Rule
#29. I got the Rolly on my arm and I'm pouring Chandon
And I roll the best weed cause I got it going on.
Snoop Dogg
#30. Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.
Jay-Z
#31. You've got to realize that the world's a test,
You can only do your best and let Him do the rest.
You've got your life, and got your health,
So quit procrastinating and push it yourself.
Cee Lo Green
#32. Life is a blast when you know what you're doin',
Best to know what you're doin' 'fore your life get ruined.
Life is a thrill when your skill is developed,
If you ain't got a skill or trade, then shut the hell up.
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
#33. Rev Run is a living legend of Hip-Hop, who's still making great music, but now he's also the dad to an amazing family, ... This series takes us inside his world. It's a kind of a reality 'Father Knows Best' with comedy, heart, Hip-Hop and drama-all under one roof at Run's House.
Tony DiSanto
#34. Personally, I just think rap music is the best thing out there, period. If you look at my deck in my car radio, you're always going to find a hip-hop tape; that's all I buy, that's all I live, that's all I listen to, that's all I love.
Eminem
#36. What I feel with the best of hip-hop music and with the best of what has been produced by hip-hop culture is that it's going to be timeless, and it's going to last.
Simon De Pury
#37. I never fronted, you can get it if you want it ...
Won't say I'm the best, but I'm not that far from it.
Lord Finesse
#38. People have stopped battling in hip hop, in the primitive sense, and the focus of the competitive element has shifted to the music. It's less about bragging and more about being the best lyrically and poetically.
Nas
#39. What's more they are also some of the best-paid entertainers in history: Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent, raked in U.S. $150 million in 2008 alone, placing him on top of Forbes's "Hip-Hop Cash Kings" list.
Peter Mcallister
#40. I never let the worst things in life get the best of me.
So take these testes and, ummm ... open sesame.
King Sun
#41. Beef is best served like steak:
Well done, get a gun in ya face.
Pusha T
#42. Being No. 1. It's talked about all of the time in hip-hop. 'I'm still No. 1! I'm the best! I'm the greatest of all time!' It's the same mentality in sports.
Michael Rapaport
#43. By denying its musical and artistic merit, hip hop's critics get to have it both ways: they can deny the legitimate artistic standing of rap while seizing on its pervasive influence as an art form to prove what a terrible effect it has on youth.
Michael Eric Dyson
#44. So I think hip-hop is moving and is going to continue to move in the direction of rappers just being honest with themselves, whether you're talking about Common and Mos Def or Nas and 50 cent.
Talib Kweli
#45. You can call me gay or a tutti-frutti
But I won't touch it until I know whose booty
Erick Sermon
#46. When people treat you like nothing, you begin to feel like nothing.
Drake
#47. I love that hip-hop can still provide jobs for niggas to get money and to put their crew on. I would never say that hip-hop is going down. It's cool, but it needs an adjustment. I think that hip-hop just needs a little fine-tuning.
Redman
#48. I am learning how to dance hip-hop. I'm a good dancer when I dance salsa.
Stephanie Sigman
#49. There are plenty of people who are, I think, completely racist who love hip-hop.
David Byrne
#50. I'm so sick of hearing that U.K. hip hop doesn't get credit and success when I'm working to get it - for me and for others, too.
Estelle
#51. Heavenly Father, I'm a soldier
I'm gettin, hotter, cuz the world is gettin' colder.
Tupac Shakur
#52. The boys in the hood are always hard.
Eazy-E
#53. Hip-Hop isn't just music, it is also a spiritual movement of the blacks! You can't just call Hip-Hop a trend!
Lauryn Hill
#54. 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.
Hoodie Allen
#55. I'm into hip-hop, rap, country, blues, gospel, old school, new school ... whatever ... pop. If it's really good, I like it. I don't have to be told what to listen to. If I like it and it's good, I'll listen to it.
Toby Keith
#56. All of a sudden it became that hip hop didn't used to be about partying; hip hop used to be about putting out a message.
Boots Riley
#57. People called rock & roll 'African music.' They called it 'voodoo music.' They said that it would drive the kids insane. They said that it was just a flash in the pan - the same thing that they always used to say about hip-hop.
Little Richard
#58. Maybe I need somebody that could save me
From the parts of myself that keep making me crazy.
Slug
#59. Unfortunately there is a standard set for it that precedes hip-hop. It would be great if corporate America didn't do this, but there is a huge market for sex and violence and anti-Black representations in America and the world that doesn't begin or end with hip-hop.
Bakari Kitwana
#60. Screamin' 'Carpe Diem!' until I'm a Dead Poet.
Jay-Z
#62. 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.
One9
#64. They smile in my face, behind my back they talk trash,
Mad and stuff because they don't have cash.
Erick Sermon
#65. We in the 25th hour,
It's now or never.
We gotta get it 'fore it's gone forever.
In the end, time waits for no man ...
What's your plan?
Reks
#66. I realized how far-reaching the effect of hip hop was when I walked by a jewelry store named Bling in a small, rural town in France. Hip hop has made a huge impact on urban culture. Yet many brands still don't speak to young people in a tone and manner that's representative of them.
Steve Stoute
#67. I make soul music for hip-hop heads. It's music I'd want to sample if I were a rapper.
Mayer Hawthorne
#68. Shoot eagles on the Jack Nicklaus course,
Porsche with the triple exhaust,
Seats soft like a midget's cough ...
Action Bronson
#69. Nowadays, the game is all bugged out,
Phony, like back when Hammer tried to come thugged out.
Daniel Dumile
#71. Laugh with fake id's but i have permanent license of pain in eyes
Kjiva
#72. My dad is from Queens. I remember visiting as a kid. My grandparents grew up here. All the actors I respected were coming out of here. All the hip-hop I was listening to - Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, Biggie, Wu Tang - was coming out of New York. I'm just into it.
Bryan Greenberg
#73. Bebop and hip-hop, in so many ways, they're connected. A lot of rappers remind me so much of bebop guys in terms of improvisation, beats and rhymes. My dream is to see hip-hop incorporated in education. You've got the youth of the world in the palm of your hand.
Quincy Jones
#74. It's a weird sound [ "Animals"] inspired by a hip hop drum loop. I listen to a lot of hip hop tracks and it's not used quite often in House currently. I chopped up the loop and edited it so you wouldn't recognize the original.
Martin Garrix
#75. Sippin' on that brown stuff
Got you feeling like you found love,
Or maybe it was just luck.
But honestly ... it's probably none of the above.
Slug
#76. I think the hip hop world and the rock world still have a lot in common, but it certainly seems like things happen and break at a much faster pace in the hip hop world.
Bubba Sparxxx
#77. When I say a spoken Hebrew sentence, half of it is like the King James Bible and half of it is a hip-hop lyric. It has a roller-coaster effect.
Etgar Keret
#78. So I start my mission- leave my residence
Thinkin how could I get some dead presidents
Rakim
#79. Why did one straw break the camel's back?
Here's the secret:
The million other straws underneath it.
Mos Def
#80. Bob Marley performed the 'One Love Peace' concert in Jamaica with the two different warring political sides. There's always been that in black music and culture in general. It's no surprise because black music is such a reflection of what's going on in black life. It's not unusual for hip-hop.
Mos Def
#81. Hip Hop has introduced us to a lot of genres that we probably wouldn't even listen to in our own homes from our parents.
B.J. The Chicago Kid
#82. Got more milky syllables than alphabet cereals.
Keith Murray
