Eminem

The emotions in a song - the anger, aggression - have got to be legitimate.

Being a student of hip-hop in general, you take technical aspects from places. You may take a rhyme pattern or flow from Big Daddy Kane or Kool G Rap.

When 'Paul's Boutique' came out, I was one of the fans that didn't get it.

Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor?! I wouldn't say I lived in a ghetto; I'd say I lived in the 'hood. The same friends I had back then are the same people on tour with me now.

Hip hop has always been braggin' and boasting and 'I'm better at you than this' and 'I'm better at you than that.'

You know, not to sound corny or nuthin', but I felt like a fighter comin' up, man. I felt like, you know, I'm being attacked for this reason or that reason, and I gotta fight my way through this.

Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I'll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know I've written a whole song in an hour.

Rap was my drug.

The album requires a certain focus of mine that I can't really explain - let's just say it's all I can really do while I'm doing it.

I want to keep making records as long as I can, but I don't know how long you can be taken seriously in rap.

When you're a little kid, you don't see color, and the fact that my friends were black never crossed my mind. It never became an issue until I was a teenager and started trying to rap.

Say there's a white kid who lives in a nice home, goes to an all-white school, and is pretty much having everything handed to him on a platter - for him to pick up a rap tape is incredible to me, because what that's saying is that he's living a fantasy life of rebellion.

My only scheme was to be a rapper.

It sometimes feels like a strange movie, you know, it's all so weird that sometimes I wonder if it is really happening.

Before I was famous, when I was just working in Gilbert's Lodge, everything was moving in slow motion.

It'd be stupid for me to sit here and say that there aren't kids who look up to me, but my responsibility is not to them. I'm not a baby sitter.

To the people I forgot, you weren't on my mind for some reason and you probably don't deserve any thanks anyway.

If you're the parent, be a parent. You know what I mean? I'm a parent. I have daughters.

If there's not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.

There was certainly, like, a rebellious, like, youthful rage in me. And there was also the fact of no getting away from fact that I am white, and you know, this is predominantly black music, you know.