In the urban diaspora, two of the most popular routes to a life of success and riches are sports and music, particularly basketball and rap. Brooklyn is, by population, the biggest borough in New York City, with 2.5 million residents. Kings County, stand up. And hip-hop, naturally, paid it back in tribute. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Taken separately from the rest of New York City, it'd be America's fourth-largest city. Monday marks the 18-year anniversary of the Notorious B.I.G. Brooklyn Quotes. #Brooklyn #Way #Spread “If you don't love yourself, I'll make you see your own heart.”-- The Notorious B.I.G. Tears rise as I wonder, [i] Do prisoners get to have homemade afghans? Many rap fans are as familiar with Brooklyn neighborhoods and streets as they are their own, thanks largely to hip-hop. He was at the opposite side of the street from where he’d stood before, but the caramel color of his coat was unmistakable. tags: brooklyn, hate, jace-wayland, mortal-instruments, new-york-city. Brooklyn was tricky that way. Forget this wretched place”, “I learned to keep my eyes open and my mouth shut.”, “Yeah, we all hated the Nazis, and if anybody didn't, he kept his fool mouth shut about it. Not just older and bigger. [/i] The tears surprise me because I'm not really one to cry for Althea.”, “Whenever I walked across the Manhattan Bridge, I remembered myself as having crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. He embraced his new identity as a coward. Follow Laughing Squid: Facebook | Twitter | Google News, Follow Laughing Squid on Facebook and Twitter. Where was the chivalry of yesteryear?”, “As a teenager in Brooklyn Quentin had often imagined himself engaged in martial heroics, but after this he knew, as a cold immutable fact, that he would do anything necessary, sacrificing whatever or whomever he had to, to avoid risking exposure to physical violence. Because if you lived in Flatbush, you were surrounded by Jews. RELATED: All 67 References to Brooklyn in Jay-Z's Catalog of Songs, All 67 References to Brooklyn in Jay-Z's Catalog of Songs. When she turned back to look again, he was gone”, “Was it an instinct towards their future life together that she was already sensing, which made her pull back? It didn't matter what he had to do, he would do it and be glad.”, “The most special times in a person's life are not meant to last forever. He was loitering in front of what looked like a Ford V8 parked nose-up on the sidewalk. Or was it all real and true and was it that she, Francie, was the dreamer?”, “Men were good for one thing only. In his site-specific street art project “Rap Quotes,” artist Jay Shells selected more than 30 rap lyrics that reference locations in New York City, turned them into street signs, and posted them on location in the city. It was all dream stuff. Florence adjusted her shawl over her shoulders and crossed to the opposite corner of the plaza. Her jaw is tight with the stubborn ferocity of Brighton Beach's old mobsters and the Rockaways' working-class holdouts against the brutal inevitability of rising seas. 's death. The soap bubbles rise, with the sun flashing brilliant colors, then bursts into a showery memory mist.”, “Apparently Brooklyn needn't always push itself to be something else, something conscious and anxious, something pointed toward Manhattan.... Brooklyn might sometimes also be pleased, as here on Flatbush, to be its grubby, enduring self.”, “It happened every single day in Brooklyn: awaken to fresh glory, fall asleep to blight and ruin.”, “Everyone who does not live in Berlin lives in Brooklyn now.”, “He'd once explained that when he was a boy his very proper parents had forbidden him and his brothers to curse in the house so 'feather buckets' was the young boys coded way of saying 'f*ck it”, “I had to say it gave me a warm feeling to picture Meredith Winslow spending twenty years or so in an ill fitting orange jumpsuit, cozying up to a great big girl named Beulah”, “To people from 'Brooklyn-Brooklyn' North Brooklyn is really just South Queens.”, “She was arriving at a revelation that the secret to living was simply forgetting”, “And here in this other realm she looms over him, vast and sprawling, wildly patchwork and dense. Many of Biggie’s lyrics are far too dirty to […] I work at a record label in Brooklyn called Ba Da Bing. They're like bubbles rising from a plastic ring dipped into a soapy solution. Every borough in New York has a claim on hip-hop's history. Brooklyn's place in rap history is unimpeachable; arguably the genre's greatest living artist was from the Marcy Projects, and one of its greatest deceased ones repped Bed-Stuy as well. Every snowflake that I caught was a miracle unlike any other.”, “He’d get lost if he tried to find his way back to New York from her neighborhood. Now the truth was catching up with her at the speed of her galloping heartbeat…Now they had summoned her. These quotes are all split out by the artist that said them. Don’t forget to share them all with your friends and loved ones! Shame never came into it. © 2020 Complex Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Welcome back. Bed Stuy (do or die). #Disappointment #Love You #Love Yourself “I mean even though we were going through our drama I would never wish death on nobody, you know what I'm sayin' Because there ain't no coming back from that”-- The Notorious B.I.G. Not a member of the Party. Known for his effortless flow on the mic, storytelling abilities and profound lyrics on urban life in America, Biggie Smalls left an enduring mark on the world and influenced a generation of artists. Many rap fans are as familiar with Brooklyn neighborhoods and streets as they are their own, thanks largely to hip-hop. Host your WordPress site with Managed WordPress at Laughing Squid Hosting. But there are spires at Brooklyn's heart, too- perhaps not as grand as his own, and maybe some of hers are actually the airy, fanciful amusement-park towers of Coney Island- but all are just as shining, just as sharp.”, “And she wondered then if she herself were the problem reading malice into motives when there was none intended”, “Who is she, after all? COMPLEX participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means COMPLEX gets paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. The color of the poppies on her bedspread. He would lie down and cry and put his arms over his head or play dead. Explore 403 Brooklyn Quotes by authors including Chris Rock, Shakira, and Zoe Kravitz at BrainyQuote. Christopher Wallace, the infamous Brooklyn-bred rapper, would have been 42 years old, had he … Powered by Laughing Squid Hosting and WordPress VIPNewsletter | Affiliate Disclosure | Privacy Policy© 1995-2020 Laughing Squid LLC, all rights reserved, Determined Calico Cat Repeatedly Attempts to Retrieve a Fish That's Frozen Under the Icy Surface of a Lake, Kind Man Gets Adorably Mobbed by Raccoons While Feeding Them Hot Dogs on a Cold Nova Scotia Night, 18 Year Old Indian Girl Breaks Own Two-Time Guinness World Record For Longest Hair on a Teenager, A Provocative Bronze Sculpture of a Pregnant Woman's Torso With an In Utero Fetus Holding a Smartphone, Morgan Freeman Plays a Smooth Talking Disc Jockey on a Classic 1971 Episode of 'The Electric Company'. And Jews, having paid the price in blood, now owned the Nazis outright, and we could do anything we wanted to them.”, “Only then, as she prepared to cross the avenue, did she again spot the man in the fedora hat. Although Christopher Wallace passed away in March, 1997, he was still a lyrical genius, producing incredible rhymes that flow perfectly. Otherwise known as Biggie Smalls, or The Notorious B.I.G, Wallace was an American rapper, still regarded as one of the best and most influential of all time. You had to live there in order to find your way about.”, “Florence could feel a constriction in her chest…She had been foolish enough to hope that whatever she was walking into would affect no one but herself. Our editorial content is not influenced by any commissions we receive. It was The Notorious B.I.G. For what she was seeing suddenly, in her mind’s eye, was an image of the two of them dancing on the edge of the world, not realising that they were about to fall off”, “Red for luck. Give him what he wants, and don’t ask too many questions. "I have a day job Monday to Friday. Killing spiders. Tears rise as I wonder, {i} Do prisoners get to have homemade afghans? He would run in the other direction. Williamsburg, Hasidim enclave and artist haven turned hipster ground zero. [...] But by the time I arrived in Brooklyn to meet Alex, I was starting to misremember crossing in the third person, as if I had somehow watched myself walking beneath the Brooklyn Bridge's Aeolian cables.”, Roller Coaster Kids: Tales of 1960's Coney Island, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls. Shells discusses the project in this video by ANIMAL New York. And they knew everything”, “Florence, listen to me carefully.... Take whatever that agent offers you. Here are 100 great hip hop quotes about happiness in life. “Google “brooklyn writer” and you’ll get, “Brooklyn was a dream. It was sad though. “Brooklyn,” off the Artist Formerly Known as Mos Def’s 1999 debut solo album, Black on Both Sides, is as direct an ode to Brooklyn as you’re likely to encounter. Crown Heights, where now the only riots are over seats at brunch. The color of the poppies on her bedspread. Other than that, I was on my own. {/i} The tears surprise me because I'm not really one to cry for Althea.”, “Red for luck. Get yourself an exit visa as soon as you can. And hip-hop, naturally, paid it back in tribute. He had a tough childhood, started dealing drugs at around the age of 12, and dropped out of school at age 17. As Jay became a more well-established force within the New York rap scene, Brooklyn became a way of reminding you he wasn't to be fucked with. In his site-specific street art project “Rap Quotes,” artist Jay Shells selected more than 30 rap lyrics that reference locations in New York City, turned them into street signs, and posted them on location in the city. Quotes tagged as "brooklyn" Showing 1-30 of 72 “I hate Brooklyn.” ― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones. Disappear. Aug 19, 2014 - "Spread Love, its the Brooklyn Way" Awesome lyrics from one of the best rappers of all time, written in black watercolor to adorn your wall, your desk, your nightstand.... anywhere! One wrong move and Florence herself might be on the chopping block herself”, “Late June in Brooklyn is like the very beginning of a party-when the music is really good, but you know that it's about to get way better, so you just do a little two-step before the real turn-up starts.”, “I wish I had this book when I was a kid--a book on a shelf that came from someone of this background and made me feel that my voice was relevant.”, “My breath came out in a fog and rose into the milky sky.