The love of words is the beating heart of hip-hop. But don’t take it from us—many of hip-hop’s most talented wordsmiths have professed their love of words, wordplay, rhymes, and the writing process.
Here are some of our favorite quotes from some of hip-hop’s most language-loving artists.
Jay-Z by Mike Barry. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 2.0
Jay-Z
Jay-Z is one of hip-hop’s most celebrated lyricists, known for infusing his verses with multiple layers of meaning.
“Since rap is poetry, and a good MC is a good poet, you can’t just half-listen to a song once and think you’ve got it. Here’s what I mean: A poet’s mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.”
- From Decoded, 2010
E-40
E-40’s lyrics draw inspiration from multiple sources, including some he started mining when he was just a kid.
“When I was little, seven or eight years old, in third and fourth grade, I would always try to use long words and stuff. But it was not just that, I kept my ear to the streets. When you’re living in the inner city, you pick up on a lot of things and you also make up things that are kind of the same meaning, like a double entendre, with the words that are circulating. You add your twist to it, and that’s what slang is all about—to be circulated and switched up. Slang is really coded talk.”
- From Complex, 2017
Erykah Badu
At the core of Erykah Badu’s genre-blending music is the desire to speak directly to the listener.
“If you want to relate to a certain audience or generation, you have to speak their language. I truly believe that.”
- From Pitchfork, 2015
Primavera19 -119 by Raph_PH. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 2.0
GZA
GZA is often outspoken about his belief in words’ importance to hip-hop.
“It’s always been about being lyrical—who can craft the wittiest, the most intellectual, the smartest and the cleverest rhymes. It’s always been that for us as MCs from Day One. It’s the same for me now.”
- From Cuepoint, 2015
Ice Cube
Ice Cube has never been a man to mince words, but he has always loved them.
“My love of words and wordplay goes all the way back to things like Cat in the Hat and Muhammad Ali’s ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.’ I loved synonyms, antonyms, all that. Rhyming was a way to create something from nothing, and it was free.”
- From Los Angeles Times, 2004
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Rapsody
Rapsody’s unique lyrical genius stems from her ability to pack every verse with expressive power.
“I’ve always been a fan of wordplay, and I was intrigued at an early age with the power of words and all the ways you could use the words in hip hop. When listening to my favorite artists growing up it was amazing the ideas they were able to convey in just two bars of a song. By setting up the words and using metaphors you could put some of the densest thoughts into 10 lines. That’s genius.”
- From Get Out!, 2019
Talib Kweli (and friends) - Brooklyn Bowl - Rapsody by Steven Pisano. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 2.0
Kendrick Lamar
Kendrick Lamar’s lyrical abilities have earned him millions of fans (and a Pulitzer Prize).
“I spend 80 percent of my time thinking about how I’m going to execute, and that might be a whole year of constantly jotting down ideas, figuring out how I’m going to convey these words to a person to connect to it. What is this word that means this, how did it get here and why did it go there and how can I bring it back there? Then, the lyrics are easy.”
- From Vanity Fair, 2018
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Megan Thee Stallion
For Megan Thee Stallion, it’s all about wording things in memorable ways.
“Biggie inspires me, too. I love his wordplay—he could be talking about spreading jam on toast and he’ll word it in such a cool way. So I’m like, ‘Okay, how can I do that?’”
- From Billboard, 2018
Drake
Drake’s writing process starts with real life.
“Sometimes I'm working and sometimes I'm just waiting. I write about my life, I don't write stories. A lot of classic rap is storytelling, but it's storytelling about someone else, fictional stories sometimes. I can't do that; I have to write about my life.”
- From Q with Jian Ghomenshi, 2013
Missy Eliott
Missy Eliott’s lyrical (and hit-making) mastery earned her the honor of being the first woman rapper inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
“Writing for myself is harder than writing for other artists because I critique myself so hard, and I hear so many things and styles in my head for myself that I know artists I write for won’t try. So, I use them on myself, so it takes longer writing for myself.”
- From Billboard, 2019
Nas
Nas’s legendary lyrical skills are rooted in a love of accumulating—and expertly deploying—vocabulary.
“I used to keep a dictionary and work with it and then I realized there are more words that exist in the English language than there are in this dictionary. I need a bigger dictionary. Why? How come they don't have every word? And then I was like, ‘Wait, it's impossible for one book to have every word.’ So that means you have to buy multiple dictionaries. I fell in love with words and I think that made my mom smile. I think that was cool for her.”
- From All Things Considered, 2012
Nas 80-35 Fest 2016 by Max Goldberg. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 2.0
Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj’s virtuosity with metaphor and rhyme is based on the endless pursuit of saying powerful things in new ways.
“I think that it’s very important to expand your vocabulary. I think it’s very important to be colorful in your lyrics. I think it’s very important to say [things] that no one’s ever said before.”
- From Genius, 2018
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