I had a lot of respect for Prodigy. He brought the hood to the booth. When we were trying to shape this rap thing into something, he was one of the cats I respected for bringing the hood into the booth.

I 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.

Subconsciously, Islam took over me, so it was like eighty or ninety percent of the fabric of the person I was.

Rakim Quotes