Back Quote by Yung Lean

Icelandic peoples were the ones who memorized sagas... We were the first rappers of Europe.

— Bjork

As far as rap goes, I grew up in Hollis, Queens, so early influences were people like Run DMC and LL Cool J.

— Ja Rule

I've always been an outsider everywhere I go - I don't fit in with the Swedish rap community or the American rap community. But…

— Yung Lean

Run DMC brought us out of that underground-only feel. They brought rap above ground and made it respectable as an art form to mainstream…

— Ice Cube

Rap music started because they were bored of other music so they created something really new.

— Aesop Rock

Rap started as this very black, socio-political type of thing. And now it's turned into pop music - we laugh about how everybody is…

— Stephen Glover

To me, the whole thing with the roots of rap music was when the DJ had to supply all the music for the group…

— Mike D

When Run DMC and all that starting poppin off, thats when we really took Hip-Hop to another level, as far as in our neighborhood.…

— Raekwon

I've never been massive on rap, but there's that whole kind of culture of U.K. rap.

— MNEK

I think there was a brief period where Norwegian bands were evolving and that was an interesting time where it seemed like a band…

— Mat McNerney

They had all this talent, and they had no instruments. So they started rap music. They rhymed on their own. They made their own…

— Max Roach

Contemporary Swedish artists that chose Swedish as their language tended to sing about certain topics and use words I wanted to avoid.

— Jens Lekman