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.
RakimI'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.
RakimI 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.
RakimIt 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.
Rakim