Michael Rapaport Quotes

I heard Q-Tip on the Jungle Brothers’ song ‘The Promo.’ It was very exciting. It was very new. The music and the culture around hip-hop was evolving. I think there’s an emotional quality to their music and there’s a vulnerability to the music. For me, A Tribe Called Quest was my Beatles.

At the end of the day, my sole goal, when I go into any scene, is to try to be as honest as I possibly can, and then everything else is second. The most important thing for me is to just be as honest as I possibly can.

A Tribe Called Quest music was so inclusive, so conscious, it brought such a community together.

I’m always gonna be an actor, so I’m trying to figure out what I’m gonna do next. I would love to make a documentary again someday, but I need to take a break from it.

I had a boom box, but I didn’t go too far with it because I had a really, really big one. It was like the size of a suitcase, and I was just a little kid.

Positive doesn’t mean unflawed: It means human and vulnerable. If you make a film and you’re portraying the subject with respect, you’re gonna do it in an honest way.

But it all came, and for me, hip-hop has done more for racial divide and racial sort of bringing together than anything in the last 30 years. Seeing people like Eminem sounding like somebody like Jay-Z and just the racial aspects of it all.

I grew up in New York City in the ’80s, and it was the epicenter of hip-hop. There was no Internet. Cable television wasn’t as broad. I would listen to the radio, hear cars pass by playing a song, or tape songs off of the radio. At that time, there was such an excitement around hip-hop music.

I would love to document the Roots; I think they have an interesting story. I have a curiosity about them. Their musicality and their live performances I think would be great, and I have a feeling that there are stories behind each one of them.

Call it stubborn, call it ignorant, call it what you want, but I don’t think I have to join a particular faith or culture or creed or religion just to fit in.

To make independent films, you can’t think about them too much, ponder on them too much, get overwhelmed by the enormity of it.

When you’re playing this bad of a character, it’s obviously not reality for someone who’s not living that life.

Were there certain things that I didn’t feel were dignified enough to make it into the movie? Yeah.

Being a good rapper is hard to do. I’m a good Rapaport, but that’s about it.

Right now I’m taking a break from hip-hop documentaries. But I would do it if things lined up.

Only a genius can play a fool.

The thing about New York is you can leave your house without a plan and find the day. You can’t do that in Los Angeles. You need to get in your car, all this, you can’t just drive around like a lunatic. In New York, you can literally walk outside, and wind up anywhere.

So to compare the Beatles, obviously the Beatles are the Beatles, but in hip-hop terms, Tribe is the Beatles. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five are the Beatles. Big Daddy Kane is Jimi Hendrix. It means that much to people that grew up with it.

I love my kids, and the moments I have with them, and it’s kind of weird, it’s such an age old cliche, but the way that my sons, the way they make me feel when I look at them, the way they say things, no one else would probably react to them, but it’s a special thing for me.

I don’t want to misrepresent who I am personally. I don’t want my kids to see me on a talk show and say, “You’re talking different” or “You look different, dad.” I’m not gonna be an animal; I know how to conduct myself.