Rakim quotes

We lost the connection between the entertainment world and the neighborhoods.

You can hear the seven sins Blowin' through the ghetto wind.

So I start my mission- leave my residence Thinkin how could I get some dead presidents

It might sound crazy but you put your money up and take out a little every week. You put yourself on a salary instead of getting $7,000 this week, $20,000 next week and $5,000 the week after that. Take a $1,000. You got your toys, you got everything and your money under your mattress. Break it down and have a salary to take care of you and your family and stretch that money.

What's powerful about the mind, the mind comes through every physical and when the physical goes the mind still exists.

Whenever I sat down to write something it was never anything I took lightly. It was something that I'd want you, somebody in Japan, and somebody [over there to hear it].

Feed me hip-hop and I start tremblin'

I've always been a fan of hip hop and there are cats out there that I admire.

Every time I sit down and write I got to put something conscious in there. It's like I got a job now. They say that for those that know you got to deal in equality. If you know and you don't speak on it and don't apply it, it's like you're the worst hypocrite. I feel I got a job to do, being that I study so much and I believe in Allah like I do, I feel like I got to spread the word.

And I'll break, when I'm through breakin, I'll leave you broke, Drop the mic when I'm finished, and watch it smoke

Stay wise and the mind is untouchable.

Sometimes you start flowing and shits starts adding on to whatever cipher you're dealing with. Meanwhile you got all of these thoughts in your head and you don't get enough time to put them down. That's another reason I started writing from the last word to the front word. It's methods to the madness. Sometimes I can't understand it or explain it but it is what it is.

I only made x amount of albums in 20 years and to still be living comfortably. A lot of people and friends look at me and be like yo Ra how do you do it? You don't go on tour every year and you don't make an album every year, you chill with your family and watch TV. Everyone else is out on tour getting that money. But I managed to do my thing right with the help of my accountant and I'm still comfortable.

Keep your guns on and don't let anybody tell you how to load your guns or bust ya guns.

There's things in the Bible when you read the Quran there different wordings. The Quran is dealing with the Most High and the Bible is dealing with God. If they read them both and put it together they'll know what the true culture is.

When you come in the building with your guns don't take them off.

I never went to college. I think about it a lot. I can't watch a game without thinking where I would have been if I had ga head and went to college and pursued my career.

Get your money and as long as nobody is stepping on my wad then we're good.

I don't accept that the new generation is looking for anything different than what we've always been looking for. Depending on the moment, they want bangers that make them crack their neck, they want tracks that put them in a zone where they can sit back and chill.

It's a bold statement but I think people need to read between the lines.

Teach the youth to speak the truth, show them what peace can do

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.

The man is the captain, the women is the lieutenant and the kids are the soldiers. Like right now I'm not home with my kids. I teach my Wisdom so when I'm not there she takes care of the shorties. Just like the sun shines on the moon, and when the earth rotates and the moon is over here, and the sun is over here, and the sun and its shaded on the side we get light from the moon, showing and proving how we're symbolic to the stars and things of that nature.

Before I started rapping and touring I weighed about 160. But by going on the road every night eating fast food, performing every night, partying and drinking I started gaining weight immediately.

That's another thing yo rappers are scared to bring new styles out. There's so many different ways we can be flowing but everybody chooses to flow the generic way.

A lot of reasons I didn't do records with people is because I never wanted their light to reflect on me.

Now I got kids and I'm more wise now. Life means more to me than having fun. I'm more calm, more wise, and more cautious.

It might take a while but I think the rap game is the people that can do it. We're all role models more than athletes because athletes don't wear clothes like the kid in the hood and they don't walk and talk like the kids in the hood. We're closer to them than anybody because they can look at us and see them.

Sometimes I can't believe half of the love that I get.

I always gave my moms and pops the utmost respect. I didn't talk back to my peoples. The way they presented themselves to us, we knew. Don't talk back to moms and pops.

What I want to do right now is give hip hop back to the hood. Before it was a neighborhood thing where it belonged to the hood and the rappers were reporting and there were rules and parameters. Now it seems like the artist's game.

I'm not a flamboyant artist.

Tried to put shame in my game to make a name, I'mma put it on a bullet...put it in your brain.

I go to Queens for queens to get the crew from Brooklyn, Make money in Manhattan and never been tooken. Go Uptown and the Bronx to boogie down, Get strong on the Island, recoup, and lay around.

I ain't no joke, I used to let the mic smoke, Now I slam it when I'm done and make sure it's broke.

You can't win for losing.

I'm you and you are me. I'm a man and you're a man. When people understand the more they know Self, the real Inner Self of themselves it's the same physical structure you've got. The same things you deal with I deal with. Everything derives from the mind. What's funny is the mind is the hardest question and I guess that's why I'm always writing about it.

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

Allah's blessings is like everyday. I can't do nothing without mentioning ALLAH or one of his words. I can't do nothing without coming across one of his blessings or doing something and be like that's Allah talking to me or something happen to me and I say Allah gave me that.

I never tried to crossover or be in the public's eye everyday. I'm laid back with it and at times I wondered if I was doing the right thing promoting myself staying back a little bit and coming out when I felt that I had too. But when I get all the accolades and hear the things people say it just puts it all together for me man. It's a blessing.

You can look in a book of wrong and learn more right. If you're reading a book that has all wrong in it , you're learning what not to do.

What was once easy became confused and hard, which brings us back to the mystic question, who is God?

I saw a lot when I was young. The first time I got arrested I was twelve years old.

If anybody can make a change it's the rappers.

There's so many different ways to write a rhyme its stupid man. I don't understand why the majority of the rap game sounds the same.

You have to learn how to take an allowance.

I seen her in the subway, on my way to Brooklyn. "Hello, good lookin, is this seat tooken?" On the A Train, pickin at her brain, I couldn't get her number, I couldn't get her name. I said, "I still like your style and fashion, But I hate your hot sadiddy attitude wit a passion. Is it because brothers like to hawk a lot? Is it because your sign don't talk a lot?" She turned away, no play, I said, "OK, You don't really look good, I hope you have a bad day."

When I go out I get so much love I gotta change my way of thinking.

Now life is imitating art.

My moms is strictly Christian but once I got knowledge of self and started reading she used to love when I would sit there and tell her some of the things that I learned. It gave her an open mind to where she started believing in the most high.

It 's amazing how Allah made the mind to the point where we almost alike me and you, we almost see the same. But we got different aspects of things. Certain things are what they call common sense. Allah made it like that meaning there's only one mind, be we all occupy it. Some of us dig into it a little deeper. Some of us are lazy on it. There's only one right and one wrong.

I loved the hood and still love the hood but I had to realize like Ra you a rapper now you're in the public eye.

I got one of the illest crews in NY but when I travel it's mostly me and my girl, me and my kids or me and one or two of my dudes but the majority of the time its just me.

I think half of our life is written out for us and things happen the way their supposed to happen.

Everything becomes too normal after a while.

Every time someone come out with an album don't change the whole style up but don't do what they are expecting. Surprise them.

Hopefully the rappers can start to open the eyes in the neighborhoods and communities.

I never sold drugs. A lot of people used to think I was that dude but I never sold a crumb. I used to always be upset with that.

There is still consciousness in hip hop.

When I write I get to the point where I slow down and I gotta go back into the world and live nahmean.

A lot of times when people listen to music it's because they feel down, and that's when serious hip-hop comes into play. When times is hard, people can hear a rapper that inspires them to do what they [are] supposed to do.

Some of you been trying to write rhymes for years, But weak ideas irritate my ears. Is this the best that you can make? Cause if not, and you got more...I'll wait.

I love to see when people are real passionate about what they feel and what they say.

I don't want to put nobody on blast but in the beginning it's like somebody telling you somebody looks like you and you've been looking in the mirror your whole life and nobody looks like you. Same thing with me.

Thinkin' of a master plan Cause ain't nothin' but sweat inside my hand.

When you come out the streets. I ain't braggin'. I never sold drugs but I kept a joint on me. I got arrested plenty of times back when I was a juvenile. Not saying I was a bad ass. I was a juvenile coming' out to the city, to do MC conventions that Mike & Dave was doing. I had to hold myself down. Now I put the gat up. I chill. I pay more attention to life.

Once I get the track I know what to do with it.

Once I finish one album I know where to begin again.

The mind is one of Allah's best designs.

I always had an intelligence with me, I was always in the streets, I was always trying to do good. I was always looking for something to guide me. In the beginning church wasn't it.

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.

I'm one dude and when I make my bed I lay in it but don't stereotype me. Never sold a crumb to this day and I don't do nothing on the side.

Once you start making money you have to put things into perspective.

Everything derives from the mind. From sex to the way you want people to perceive you to anything in life, it all derives from the mind. If people start realizing this and get deeper into themselves they'll realize there's nothing that they can't do.

I never wanted to do the mixtape circuit and 300,000 people hear it and that's a chapter of my life and when I do another album I'm coming off of that chapter but the whole world didn't hear that chapter so it's like I would have to start over.

Sometimes people say yo do you think rap changed you. No doubt it changed me. If I wasn't making records I'd still be hanging every night.

I love listening to old records to keep nostalgic feeling; it allows me to not lose the love for hip-hop.

The money from every unit being sold is what I feel every artist should see.

I wake you up and as I stare in your face, you seem stunned. Remember me? The one you got your idea from?

Rappers are separated.

When you're trying to please both sides of the fence at the same time you really can't do that.

I go up in the supermarkets and people always go what are you doing here and I go I'm hungry in a sarcastic but nice way just to let them know yo I'm human too man.

It is what it is but I do me and I think people respect that. They see me out in the hood by myself or with wifey and I don't have no bodyguards.

Back in the day, music imitated life. Now it's the opposite way around: life is imitating music. It's like whatever the rappers say, people think that that's how we're supposed to be; but back then, we kind of looked at the streets, and we made music for that.

Hopefully we get back to the raw essence of hip hop again.

So all hail the honorable, microphone phenomenal Persona is unbombable? Trust me son, I continue like a saga do, bringin' you the drama to allow you that the chronicle has just begun.

When you get to know your self, you get to know everyone and everything on the planet.

I don't work out too much. I just do some pushups when I feel the right hook is getting a lil weak.

My whole thing is if it wasn't for people like ya'll and people like them I wouldn't be me. I love every minute of it.

I've been writing for so long I got a lot of different ways to write.

I'm everlastin, I can go on for days and days With rhyme displays that engrave deep as X-rays I can take a phrase that's rarely heard, FLIP IT Now it's a daily word

Being in this game if you are gonna sell drugs and make records too then as many records you make is gonna be as many people that know you sell drugs. We got the hip hop cops listening now.

Man is symbolic to the sun. The sun is dealing with a ball of fire and didn't go out yet. Me being symbolic to the sun, that's what keeps me going, that's like my hunger. That's like my fury, my self esteem. That's the elements within me that keep my body motionable. The fire is self esteem. Inner strength.

I can take a phrase that's rarely heard/Flip it - now it's a daily word

Not follow me but follow the lyrics.

I start to think, and then I sink Into the paper like I was ink When I'm writing, I'm trapped in between the lines I escape when I finish the rhyme.

Do what you do don't let the label tell you to do something else.

The older I get the wiser and more skillful I get.

Go to the club or go to the block or go hang out and things start coming.

I get a craving like I fiend for nicotine. But I don't need a cigarette, know what I mean?

Timeless, so age don't count in the booth When your flow stay submerged in the fountain of youth

I just try to do me and stay out of harms way.

I used to roll up: this is a hold up, ain't nuthin funny. Stop smiling, be still, don't nuthin move but the money.

Take 7 emcees put em in a line And add 7 more brothers who think they can rhyme It'll take 7 more before I go for mine And that's 21 emcees ate up at the same time.

I see my pops everyday and that's what I wanted.

As far as our physical form, the mind is a great temple. But it has a life span and it dies.

I try not to eat too much beef. I try to eat healthy.

The physical was never the best part of the body.

I think it's a combination of my peoples that I grew up under, places that I hung out is what contributed to where I'm at now.

I'm just an addict, addicted to music Maybe it's a habit...I gotta use it.

Let's travel at magnificent speeds around the universe What could you say as the Earth gets further and further away Planets are small as balls of clay Astray into the Milky Way, world's outasight Far as the eye can see, not even a satellite Now stop and turn around and look As you stare in the darkness, your knowledge is took! So keep starin' soon you suddenly see a star You better follow it, cause it's the R.

I came in the door, I said it before I never let the mic magnetize me no more. But it's biting me, fighting me, inviting me to rhyme, I can't hold it back...I'm looking for the line. Taking off my coat, clearing my throat, My rhyme will be kicking until I hit my last note.

I've always been a picky eater but I'm not the healthiest eater.

I think things are gonna change. I'm gonna take the age limit off of hip hop.

It ain't where you're from, it's where you're at.

I feel that when we leave here I think it's just another transition and whatever it is I hope I'm prepared for it.

A lot of the things that go on we can avoid some of it.

Self-esteem makes me super, superb and supreme

I always tried to manage my money smart.

Sometimes I see where I want to take the song and wind up at the end and come back to the beginning. I don't miss nothing and everything is good. Everything I thought of is incorporated in it.

I try to keep myself out of the unnecessary bullshit.

I had a little more freedom when I started sampling because you could actually do what you wanted to do.

Things happen for a reason.

It's been a long time...I shouldn't have left you Without a strong rhyme to step to.

If something comes at me of course I'm gonna handle my business but I'm not the type to provoke the bullshit so I don't really get a lot of that.