He was not hip-hop's most gifted emcee. Still, Shakur may be the most influential and compelling rapper of them all, he was more than the sum of his artistic parts.
Hip-hop don't have no fresh energy, none at all. It's money driven, everybody tryin' to make that cheque, nobody putting art in their albums any more.
I came to a point where I couldn't walk into an urban store and find anything I liked. Everything was just getting too baggy, everything was getting so over [priced]. It's as if what I wanted in street wear was nowhere in stores, with no disrespect to any hip-hop brands.
For quiet times disappear listen to the ocean
I'm that neighborhood blizzard flooding these streets with snow.
I be more hipper than a hippopotamus Get off in your head like a neurologist
Radio is less important than it used to be. Kids are not just hip-hop kids, just punk kids, just pop kids, just whatever kids. Everyone is mixing and matching on their playlists.
All we want in this life is peace, prosperity and a little paper. . .
I can take any series of numbers and turn it into music, from Bach to bebop, Herbie Hancock to hip-hop.
Hip-hop definitely saved my life. Being able to write about the things I was doing, the things I was seein' and all that stuff, putting that on paper and coming into my own as Joell Ortiz. That's why I don't have a stage name, because I chose to talk about everything under the sun that happened to me or next to me in my music.
I like the way hip-hop is now. It's grown up enough so that it can get involved with politics if it feels like it.
I'm at a point where I don't have to wait for the income from the record to survive, so I'm in a comfortable zone, but I'll make rap records as long as I feel I have something to rap about.
Hip-hop, you're close to 50. When can we grow up?
People's feelings get hurt when they figure out what I'm worth.
I got lots of love for my crew, that is; No love for them other crews and rival kids. All them out-of-town niggas know what time it is, And if they don't? They need to buy a watch, word up.
i'm okay. . is that what you really want me to say?
If you wanna look good and not be bummy, girl you better give me that money Aooow. . .
All I see is sissies in magazines smiling. . . Whatever happened to wildin' out and being violent? Whatever happened to catching a good, old-fashioned, passionate ass whoopin'? And getting your shoes, coat and your hat tooken?
Hip-hop ain't died because of the South, that's retarded.
You wanna look pretty though, in my video