You know it ain’t no stoppin’
All the doggs I’m droppin’
It’s Friday night, so everything is poppin.

Ice Cube, “Friday,” from the soundtrack to Friday, 1995

All we want in this life is peace, prosperity and a little paper.

Q-Tip, “Peace, Prosperity and Paper,” from High School High Soundtrack, 1996

Yes I’m highly explosive, yes I’m something ferocious,
Niggas fuckin with my nerves like multiple sclerosis.

Lil’ Fame, “Black Out,” from The Man With the Iron Fists Soundtrack, 2012

Keep my planets in orbit,
Never forfeit or quit,
Move forward…
I talk with the awkward slang,
I walk with the Wu-Tang.

RZA, “Tragedy,” from Rhyme & Reason soundtrack, 1997

Look past the garbage, over the trains,
Under the ruins, through the remains,
Around the crime and pollution,
And tell me…where I fit in?

Grandmaster Caz, “South Bronx Subway Rap,” from Wild Style Soundtrack, 1983

If imitation is the greatest form of flattery,
Punk, don’t flatter me.

J-Ro, “Coast II Coast,” from Friday Soundtrack, 1995

Eminem • “Love Me” • 2002

There’s a certain mystique when I speak that you notice,
‘Cause that’s sort of unique…’cause you know it’s me.
My poetry’s deep, and I’m Stillmatic the way I flow to this beat.
You can’t sit still; it’s like trying to smoke crack and go to sleep.

– Eminem, “Love Me,” from 8 Mile Soundtrack, 2002

They say, ‘Sorry son, accept it,’ same old song of the subjectors.
Sorry, sirs, but we don’t sing along to anthems or your pledges.
In your garbage rose the rulers of the restless: do not test us.

El-P, “Rubble Kings Theme (Dynamite),” from Rubble Kings soundtrack, 2016. More from Run the Jewels…