"There was a time when people would go search out underground records. Now, underground means free, and people don't really care for it. So now artists tend to go more pop and look for the radio. You know, the radio never wanted you to speak about anything, so the music is kinda influenced by the hands of the radio which wants to homogenize it and dilute it and sanitize it. And for the most part, nobody's takin' the time to seek out the cats that are still tryin' to talk, so they have a difficult time being heard, like Chuck D said."
Quote collection
Ice T quotes (page 8 of 9)
165 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I didn't really realize how big I was 'til I started to tour, because being in your own neighborhood, people don't actually give you full props."
"When I first got into the rap game, I had an early dream of unifying rappers."
"Another thing about me dealing with the old school rappers, you see a lot of humility. When you're new, nothing is wrong. Everything is tight. Because you're trying to hype the world into believing in you."
"Everybody is doing you a favor when you're doing a documentary. You can't pressure them into it."
"I didn't start off with the responsibility because I didn't think anybody would care. But as you do meet these people influenced by your music, then you start to understand you have a responsibility. I don't think you initially know it until you feel the power of what you're really doing."
"When you start to really travel and you get to these abstract like places in the world, you would see certain people's names. It seemed like we could go anywhere. Like when we went to Afghanistan, you'd see in the dressing room Run DMC's name. Certain rappers are like journey men."
"I've always been a person that, if I'm with a woman, she's in the picture. Even my son's mom, she was on my early (album) covers."
"Everything we do helps the new artists in the long run."
"Rap is rock 'n' roll. Rock is when you push the buttons in the system; when you say, I'm not going along with what you're saying. That's rock, whether it's done with guitars, or it's done with just beats."
"The rock'n'roll lifestyle really is available to anybody that's got money. Honestly. Once you get money, if you interview a hundred people with money, they'll all sound like rock stars."
"I've got a phone, answer machine, TV set, computer, hand grenade - everything you need to run a business in Los Angeles."
"If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis."
"I think that a rap aficionado, the hardcore rap fan, will always go away from pop, in the same way a hardcore jazz fan will never think Kenny G is really a jazz artist. You gotta kind of know there's always going to be that purist who's going to be like if it ain't beats and rhymes, if there ain't a DJ, then that ain't Hip Hop."
"I mean rappin' to me is easy, it's something you can do over a week."
"When I make records I have full control of everything and I know how it sounds before it comes out, with films it's outta my hands."
"I just don't believe that there's any way that you're ever gonna get one peace, because everybody has different ways of seeing life."
"Anybody who has anybody in the armed forces, I don't care how well-trained they are, there's nothing safe about it."
"A lot of times people would offer me movies and, because I'm a car freak, I'd look in a magazine and say, 'How much is this car? If you give me this car I'll show up and do the movie' I call 'em 'sports car flicks'."
"If I do a song where I'm angry, when it's time to perform it live I'm not mad, I'm happy. I'm at a concert. But I have to somehow drum up that rage. That's acting."