I'm relevant because I fill a void for people who aren't doing what they want to do in life.
— ASAP Ferg
People who are scared don't live life.
'Illmatic' was dope.
Chris Brown owns 14 of my belts. Swizz Beatz owns a zillion of my belts. They were supporting me before I was even anybody.
When I was growing up, I saw the Aaliyah shirts, the DMX shirts, or the collab shirts with DMX and Aaliyah when they had a single together. Those were the dope collage shirts with their faces all over it. They were doing cool things like that.
I thought I was half white or something because I only know white people as Ferguson as their last name.
I'm really into simple things - things you could wear every day.
I don't have a problem with how people receive the music. I feel like it's for everybody.
It's kind of hard for you to be doing huge things and still be knowing what's happening on the street level.
Sometimes I can't sleep 'cause I can't get a melody or a beat out my head, so I just have to wake up and, like, record it on a voice note.
If I was just to shut up, I wouldn't be a true artist.
I'm gonna put out another album and then another album after that. And then I'm gonna put out a mixtape, and then I'm gonna put out another ten songs, and then I'm gonna put out a hundred more songs and a thousand songs after that.
No city owns me, you know what I'm saying? I'm from New York, but no city owns me. Nobody can bottle up my sound and box me in. Yes, I am a rapper, but am I a New York rapper? No. I am from New York, I love New York to death, but I will not conform myself to one place, no.
I create art. It's kinda abstract.
I don't have a specific style. My style is unorthodox; that is my style. So you can't really place me here, place me there, because my style is just to be anywhere, you know what I'm saying?
I used to be a daredevil on BMX bikes.
DMX was just one of the figures that I thought no one could ever be better than. I used to look up to him so much. The bikes, the dogs, that's where I come from.
I used to listen to 'Ready to Die' around the time I dropped out of college. I was scrambling for work and money.
I got a lot of fans who are not even into fashion. So they look at me and wear what I wear because it's cool or looks cool.
'Trap Lord' is basically the writer of the hood. It's the kid that's from the hood, from the trap, who's going to preach to his friends and his homies. Because they're not going to sit in no church. So they listen to me instead of going to a church, because I understand them, and that's really what the 'Hood Pope' is.
Jeremy Scott reminds me of Harmony Korine, mixing all worlds and making them into one - you just never know what he's up to.
I'm sort of like Jean-Paul Goude, the graphic designer who used to style Grace Jones and shoot all her visuals, just meaning that I use all mediums in one - music, fashion, and art. I'm hitting it from all angles.
I might be more satisfied seeing my friends really come up than myself. I'm really happy for my success, but I can't really see it, because I'm myself working. You can see it; everyone around me can see it.
I'm an animal lover.
I'm not a manufactured artist. Nobody taught me how to be a proper artist.
Racism been over. It's the old people that keep on holding on to it.
I was born alone, I'm gonna die alone. I have my own identity. I'm my own person, and no two people are the same.
There's no borders or lines you can't cross anymore. Everything is getting blended with everything. That's the dope thing about music now. Some people don't like it, more of the older people. They want to, you know, go back to old-school New York hip-hop.
I'm happy, so I just want to project that happiness through my music to make other people happy.
I always shout out my dad. My artistic roots come from him. He had his own T-shirt company and taught me the trade.
'Going Back to Cali' is one of my favorite songs because of all the East Coast - West Coast rivalry.
With 'Dope Walk,' I wanted to bring back kids dancing and having fun again. That's how it used to be in Harlem. I remember everybody Harlem-shaking and 'Chicken Noodle Soup'-ing. Those were some of the most fun and memorable times in my life.
I used to do design before I was actually rapping. I went to art and design high school.
Rapping can be repetition sometimes. Sometimes you gotta highlight your words in a certain kind of way. So I always was a fan of sing-rapping. It was always funny to me a little bit, and I think that being funny and being able to laugh, even at yourself, is a form of flattery.
Alexander Wang is a young designer, and his style is so profound. He took sports and street and kind of combined it into upscale high fashion. He made a white T-shirt a luxury.
I make music for the whole world, not just one borough.
Mixtapes are always small scale to me - they never get taken seriously, and they're always short-lived.
A lot of rappers been putting out a lot of sub-par visuals. I feel like the visuals could be better.
At the end of the day, you can't take my love for my people away.
There's no racism with the Internet.
Andy Warhol's art wasn't that interesting to me. He was more interesting to me as a person. He was art himself. I don't even think he was really into art, per se. He may have liked to do it, but I think he was more into people being into him.
Tour is fun.
Me jumping on a song with Ariana Grande is just showing versatility, you know what I'm saying?
