“When you've been raised in care, rap music isn't just about guns and sexism. They're talking about real things you can hang on to, problems of identity that you have sympathy with. It's not just about the music, with rap: when I was in care, it meant a whole lot more than that.” RealWholeProblemCareTalkingIdentityMusic IsGunRaisedRapSexismSympathyReal ThingsRap Music Author:Samantha Morton
“With rap music, because it's all so on the street, you get treated like a street cat: "All right, you've been eatin' enough, you're fat, get out of the way now and let somebody else come by."” WayEnoughStreetsMusic IsCatRapTreatedFatsRap Music Author:Nas
“I think rap music is the sole reason for a lot of black acceptance in pop culture; because the music is very popular, it gets our image out in other ways than in movies.” ThinkingWayReasonCultureBlackAcceptanceMusic IsPopsRapSolePop CultureRap MusicVery Popular Author:Ice Cube
“I think rap music is brought up, gangster rap in particular, as well as video games, every other thing they try to hang the ills of society on as a scapegoat.” ThinkingTryingWellsGamesParticularMusic IsRapVideoGangstersScapegoatRap MusicGangster Rap Author:Ice Cube
“My mom, she got taken away from me when I was 14 years old. She is incarcerated. My sister was incarcerated. I was homeless. When my mom went away when I was 14... I was forced to live with my aunt. My aunt, she doesn't like rap music. She thinks rap music is the devil's music. Basically she said, "Yo, if you are going to do music you can't do it in my house."” IfsThinkingYearsSaidHouseTakenMomMusic IsDevilMy MomRapMy SisterHomelessAuntRap Music Author:Sean Kingston
“Rap music is a combination of many different arts to make something new. There's always been a stigma that its existence would be short and only appeal to a certain group - but it's the biggest music in the world.” WorldArtDifferentWould BeCertainExistenceGroupsMusic IsRapAppealsCombinationSomething NewStigmaRap Music Author:Chance the Rapper
“I always did poetry, and [rap music is] pretty much hip-hop melody with poems.” Music IsHip HopRapHipsHopsMelodyRap Music Author:Tiffany Foxx
“What we're doing now, is to try to eradicate the limited notion of how people are interacting with each other through hyper-racialized ideas. A lot of it deal with, as an example, genre. If I ask you to visualize a trap musician or a hip-hop musician, you'll see one thing. If I say visualize a western classical musician, you'll see a very different thing. A lot of how music is disseminated to us is hyper-racialized. It's not something that we think about all the time, but if you take a minute to look back, it's why you get this argument when there's a white rapper.” PeopleThinkingTryingDifferentMusicianMusic IsArgumentWesternRapperClassical MusicRap Music Author:Christian Scott
“The power of the voice in rap is about the expression of truth, rather than the expression of some kind of artifice. Landays, they're about love and pleasure and oppression and levels of oppression within a family. And because of that, I think rap music is probably closely related.” ThinkingKindPleasureMusic IsRapOppressionRap Music Author:Eliza Griswold