Treat my first like my last and the last like my first and my thirst is the same as- when I came.
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be And so I put this on my life Nobody or nothing will ever come between us And I promise I'll give my life
I never ask for nothin' I don't demand of myself. Honesty, loyalty, friends and then wealth
You shared one of the most intimate things that ever happened to you - falling in love with someone who wasn't brave enough to love you back. Your relieving yourself of your 'secret' is as much about wanting to honestly connect as it is about exhibition. We are all made better by your decision to share publicly.
There's the gift, there's the spirit, and there's the work-all three have to come together. If one of those things is off, it can stop you from becoming who you were meant to be.
You could name practically any problem in the hood and there'd be a rap song for you.
I'm trying to tell the story in the most clear, concise, and truthful way, taking those everyday words and phrases and capturing them in a way that they become something else.
Boxing is a glorious sport to watch and boxers are incredible, heroic athletes, but it's also, to be honest, a stupid game to play. Even the winners can end up with crippling brain damage. In a lot of ways, hustling is the same. But you learn something special from playing the most difficult games, the games where winning is close to impossible and losing is catastrophic: You learn how to compete as if your life depended on it. That's the lesson I brought with me to the so-called "legitimate" world.
My thing is related to who I am as a person. The clothes are an extension of me. The music is an extension of me. All my businesses are part of the culture, so I have to stay true to whatever I'm feeling at the time, whatever direction I'm heading in. And hopefully, everyone follows.
I ain't lookin' at you dudes -I'm lookin' past you.
Be fluid. Treat each project differently. Be water, man. The best style is no style. Because styles can be figured out. And when you have no style they can't figure you out.
Nine to five is how ya survive, I ain't trying to survive I'm trying to live it to the limit and love it alive
Ain't nothin' wrong with the aim, just gotta change the target.
[T]he truth is you don't need some external demon to take control of you to turn you into a raging, money-obsessed sociopath, you only need to let loose the demons you already have inside of you.
When you're growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you've let yourself fall that in love with someone, once you put him on such a high pedestal and he lets you down, you never want to experience that pain again.
I believe you can speak things into existence.
Used to rock a throwback ballin on the corner, now I rock tailored suit lookin' like a owner.
I'm hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That's what this world is about. You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that's from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter.
May the best of your today's be the worst of your tomorrow's
I'm not concerned with noise because I'm playing the long game.
I keep my enemies close/ I give 'em enough rope/ They put themselves in the air/ I just kick away the chair.
I got mouths to feed til they put flowers on me.
Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don't even have to like your music. If you're big enough, people are drawn to you.
I'd rather die enormous than live dormant.
No matter where you go you are what you are player and you can try to change but that's just the top layer man you was who you was before you got here
No matter where you go, you are what you are playa.
You know the type: loud as a motorbike but wouldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight.
No one's walking around here perfect. Everyone's gonna make mistakes. That's part of how you learn.
Wherever I go, I bring the culture with me, so that they can understand that it's attainable. I didn't do it any other way than through hip-hop.
We'll have a baby who stutters repeatedly We'll name him history
Only he without sin can tell me if my means justify my ends.
[T]he truth is that drug addicts have a disease. It only takes a short time in the streets to realize that out-of-control addiction is a medical problem, not a form of recreational or criminal behavior. And the more society treats drug addiction as a crime, the more money drug dealers will make "relieving" the suffering of the addicts.
How could I be out there and not do anything?
I think Lil Wayne is extremely talented. I think he's one of the most talented ones out there.
The burden of poverty isn't just that you don't always have the things you need, it's the feeling of being embarrassed every day of your life, and you'd do anything to lift that burden.
I will not lose, for even in defeat/There's a valuable lesson learned, so it evens up for me
Their gunnin' for me, want to see me fall, you know my story, been through it all, times I felt like dyin', but I ain't cryin', what didn't kill me, makes me strong as iron.
Niggas pray and pray on my downfall, But every time I hit the ground I bounce up like round ball
As kids we didn't complain about being poor; we talked about how rich we were going to be and made moves to get the lifestyle we aspired to by any means we could. And as soon as we had a little money, we were eager to show it.
In the end, you can't censor the truth, especially when it comes packaged in hot music.
Be true to yourself- and keep things simple. People complicate things
I'm a hustler, baby; I sell water to a well!
I am not a businessman. I am a business, man.
Identity is a prison you can never escape, but the way to redeem your past is not to run from it, but to try to understand it, and use it as a foundation to grow.
Far from a Harvard student, just had the balls to do it
That's why this generation is the least racist generation ever. You see it all the time. Go to any club. People are intermingling, hanging out, having fun, enjoying the same music. Hip-hop is not just in the Bronx anymore. It's worldwide. Everywhere you go, people are listening to hip-hop and partying together. Hip-hop has done that.
Don't ever go with the flow. Be the flow.
You can put a new shirt on your back, slide a fresh chain around your neck, and accumulate all the money and power in the world, but at the end of the day those are just layers. Money and power don't change you, they just further expose your true self.
I use a lot of double meanings. I hide 'em like Easter eggs.
I'm not saying I'm God. But as far as lyrics, I'm God MC.
I believe excellence is being able to perform at a high level over and over.
I couldn't even think about wanting to be something else; I wouldn't let myself visualize another life. But I wrote because I couldn't stop. It was a release, a mental exercise, a way of keeping sane.
It's hilarious a lot of times. You have a conversation with someone, and he's like, 'You speak so well!' I'm like, 'What do you mean? Do you understand that's an insult?
I was forced to be an artist and a CEO from the beginning, so I was forced to be like a businessman because when I was trying to get a record deal, it was so hard to get a record deal on my own that it was either give up or create my own company.
Everyone needs a chance to evolve.
Males shouldnt be jealous. Thats a female trait.
It's always been most important for me to figure out "my space" rather than trying to check out what everyone else is up to, minute by minute. Technology is making it easier to connect to other people, but maybe harder to keep connected to yourself-- and that's essential for any artist, I think.
I smoked some weed, and that's how I finished 'Izzo.'
Don't make decisions based on the fear.
You can pay for school, but you can't buy class
Leave a mark they can't erase, neither space nor time.
I came, I saw, I conquered From record sales to sold out concerts.
When you step outside of school and have to teach yourself about life, you develop a different relationship to information. I've never been a purely linear thinker. You can see it in my rhymes. My mind is always jumping around, restless, making connections, mixing and matching ideas, rather than marching in a straight line. That's why I'm always stressing focus. My thoughts chase each other from room to room in my head if I let them, so sometimes I have to slow myself down.
If I don't show the world growth, how are we going to grow?
I thought I would be more inspired to have all these new feelings to talk about, but I really just want to hang out with my daughter.
Life is a gift, love opens it up.
In trouble waters I had to learn how to float
Life is for living, not living uptight, see ya somewhere up in the sky.
Screamin' 'Carpe Diem!' until I'm a Dead Poet.
It was a weird mix of emotions. One day, your best friend could be killed. The day before, you could be celebrating him getting a brand-new bike.
The genius thing that we did was, we didn't give up.
Now success was like lust, she's good to the touch, She's good for the moment, but she's never enough
You ain't gotta go to church to find your God.
Everybody look at you strange, say you changed Like you work that hard to stay the same.
Successful people have a bigger fear of failure than people who've never done anything because if you haven't been successful, then you don't know how it feels to lose it all.
I'm a mirror. If you're cool with me, I'm cool with you, and the exchange starts. What you see is what you reflect. If you don't like what you see, then you've done something. If I'm standoffish, that's because you are.
Hip-hop gave a generation a common ground that didn't require either race to lose anything; everyone gained.
Your future is ahead of you. Imagine the notion of the past fifteen years of your life being a blip in your story.
My life after childhood has two main stories: the story of the hustler and the story of the rapper, and the two overlap as much as they diverge. I was on the streets for more than half of my life from the time I was thirteen years old. People sometimes say that now I'm so far away from that life - now that I've got businesses and Grammys and magazine covers - that I have no right to rap about it. But how distant is the story of your own life ever going to be? The feelings I had during that part of my life were burned into me like a brand. It was life during wartime.
They say a midget standing on a giant's shoulders can see much further than the giant. So I got the whole rap world on my shoulders, they trying to see further than I am.
I like a girl who spend a little cash for her shoes.
We change people through conversation, not through censorship.
New York has a thousand universes in it that don't always connect but we do all walk the same streets, hear the same sirens, ride the same subways, see the same headlines in the Post, read the same writings on the walls. That shared landscape gets inside of all of us and, in some small way, unites us, makes us think we know each other even when we don't.
Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama's running so we all can fly.
Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.
I'm far from being god, but I work god damn hard.
Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don't think it's given the proper credit. It has changed America immensely. I'm going to make a very bold statement: Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations.
Everybody can tell you how to do it but they never done it
Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.
I look in the mirror, my only opponent
Remind yourself. Nobody built like you, you design yourself.
I'm hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter.
My tears is tatted, my rag in my pocket / Im just looking for love, I know somebody got it
You can want success all you want, but to get it, you can’t falter. You can’t slip. You can’t sleep. One eye open, for real, and forever.
Is to have had and lost/Better than not having at all?
If the beat is time, flow is what we do with that time, how we live through it. The beat is everywhere, but every life has to find its own flow.
You not feeling me, fine. It costs you nothing, pay me no mind.
This is why we shouldn't be afraid. There are two possibilities: One is that there's more to life than the physical life, that our souls "will find an even higher place to dwell" when this life is over. If that's true, there's no reason to fear failure or death. The other possibility is that this life is all there is. And if that's true, then we have to really live it - we have to take it for everything it has and "die enormous" instead of "living dormant," as I said way back on "Can I Live." Either way, fear is a waste of time.
I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.
Stop screamin', you know the demon said it's best to die, And even if Jehovah witness, bet he'll never testify, D'Evils.
Difficult takes a day Impossible takes a week I do this in my sleep
You can't turn a bad girl good, but once a good girls' gone bad, she's gone forever.
You learn more in failure than you ever do in success
Don't tell me what was said about me. Tell me why they were so comfortable to say it to you.
I wrote this [Most Kings] before MJ died, and his death only proves my point: When he was alive, the King of Pop, people were tireless in taking him down, accepting as truth every accusation people made against him, assuming the worst until they drove him away. When he died, suddenly he was beloved again - people realized that the charges against him might really have been bogus, and that the skin lightening was really caused by a disease, and that his weirdness was part of his artistry. But when he was alive and on top, they couldn't wait to bring him down.
Everything evens up, you just wait, Even a garbage can gets a steak, You ain't even a garbage can, you have faith!
I've never looked at myself and said that I need to be a certain way to be around a certain sort of people. I've always wanted to stay true to myself, and I've managed to do that. People have to accept that.
Remind your self. Nobody constructed like you, you style your self.
A wise man told me don't argue with fools. Cause people from a distance can't tell who is who.
I seen the worst of the worst. I deserve every blessing I receive I'm from the dirt.
When I come back like Jordan, wearing the 4-5. It ain't to play games with you, it's to aim at you, probably maim you. If I owe you I'm blowin' you to smithereens.
I'm not afraid of dying I'm afraid of not trying
Without the work, the magic won’t come.
I don't even like the word politics. It implies something underhanded and I think we need less government.
Jealousy’s a weak emotion.
I love you so, But why I love you, I'll never know.
Put me anywhere on God's green earth, I'll triple my worth. Motherf--. I, will, not, lose.
Everyone who makes music is a good collaborator at their foundation because in order to make music, you have to connect to it in a way that other people can't.
Only God can judge me so I'm gone, either love me or leave me alone.
Men lie, women lie, numbers dont
A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.
The average rap life is two or three albums. You're lucky to get to your second album in rap!
just when i thought i had everything, i lost it all
We were kids without fathers, so we found our fathers on wax and on the streets and in history, and in a way, that was a gift. We got to pick and choose the ancestors who would inspire the world we were going to make for ourselves.
I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man!
