88 Quotes by 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.

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

Lil Wayne is doing his thing, and so is Drake.

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

When I broke up with Eric B., I went on a little hiatus. Then all I was trying do is find producers. It's real hard, man.

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.

My approach to writing rhymes went hand in hand with the music. I'd try to make different rhythms with my rhymes on the track by tripping up patterns, using multi-syllable words, different syncopations. I'd try to be like a different instrument.

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

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.