Rakim

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.

I got a lot of vinyl, a lot of music in general in the house.

Age don't count in the booth.

We need the media to know that some of us are really passionate about music.

As I grew up, a lot of the music was made to uplift the spirit.

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.

I don't believe in writer's block. I'll get stuck, but being stuck, I'll still write a verse. If you know where you're going, you can always start from there and work your way back.

You grow, you mature, you live, and you learn. You get a little wiser, and you learn better ways to handle things.

I stick to my guns - that's what keeps me going as an artist. Stevie Wonder never changed from what he wanted to do, and each new album that came along was dope.

I love what I live, and I live Islam, so I applied it to everything I do. I applied it to my rhymes, and I felt that I wanted the people to know what I knew.

The laws are gonna have to change. And it's 2016. We can't keep using all the laws that was made back in the 1700s. We're gonna have to understand that times have changed.

I was heavily influenced by Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Caz, but I kind of wanted to take it somewhere else.

I always say a rapper is like a halfback in the NFL. You got about seven years, then it's a wrap.

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

I love what I do. I'm still humble.

People think the older you get, the wacker you get. I think the older I get, the better I get.

Playing the sax and then enjoying jazz music, man - it's like I learned how to find words inside of the beat.

When you look at hip-hop, I want to do that: to spit fire and take our best from the ashes to build our kingdom; to recognize all the regional styles, conscious lyrics, the tracks, underground, mainstream, the way we treat each other. Lose the garbage and rebuild our scene.

Every generation wants that real hip-hop. And I've always been able to bring that.

I've always tried to insert consciousness and spirituality in my records, interpreting the writings of all cultures and religions and how they apply to life in modern times.

I just appreciate the love that I get and support from hip-hop.

I'm a fan of Jay-Z, from the negotiating table to the booth.

Everything I did on the 'Paid in Full' album and those first three albums, I wrote everything right in the studio.

When me and Eric did songs back in the day, we didn't go and sit down in front of no A&R. We made our album, and then, when we finished, we handed it in, and then we picked the best song for the first single.

You come up, you love music, and then business interferes.

I love, you know, a lot of jazz, John Coltrane.

When I was in high school, the energy in hip-hop at that point was the park energy... I was just trying to develop my style at that point, and I think, when you're trying to find your style, you find yourself.

Back in the day, rappers were 'bump bump bump ba bump ba bump.' They was rhyming like that, but I was like, 'bababa bump bump babum ba babump bababa bump.'

The golden age was when people were starting to understand what hip-hop was and how to use it. I was lucky to come up then. Everybody wanted to be original and have substance; it was somewhat conscious... There was an integrity that people respected.

Eminem is a master.

My mother sang jazz and opera - she even performed at the Apollo on Amateur Night.

I can't look at TV without seeing something that's been influenced by rap. Even commercials for cereal. When I was small, I was a fan of cartoon characters - now the cartoon characters are rapping!

The young kids out there doing their thing, I can't knock them.

My thing is, you have to let young artists be young artists.

Hip-hop has taken a lot of different routes throughout the years, man. I've been around since 1986.

I started studying in '85 and got knowledge of self and started spitting. What was going on was taking the understanding of what I was reading and applying it with my life and applying it with my rhymes.

Subconsciously, Islam took over me, so it was like eighty or ninety percent of the fabric of the person I was.

When you listen to old-school music, you can smell your mother's food in the kitchen. You can feel where you was when you first heard that song. That's what's beautiful about music. It's for everyone, but we all have individual memories that make us love it.