Kevin Gates recently discussed his favorite emcees in the history of Rap.
“I always gravitated towards up north music,” Gates says in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I always loved the lyricism, and I loved that it was witty. And I always loved down south beats. [The Notorious B.I.G.], Jay Z, Nas, Eminem, Big L, Tupac. That was, like, my Top Five, generally. If you asked me right now what artists I listen to, I listen to Starlito, Gucci Mane, a little bit of Maino. I listen to realistic rap. I listen to artists that are really talking about something, you see what I’m saying? I listen to artists that are believable.”
While Gates appreciates Rap’s critically acclaimed emcees listed, he says he wouldn’t classify himself under any genre of music.
“I don’t know what to call what I do,” he says. “It’s no genre of music that you can put my music in. It’s no one word that you can say that would be definitive towards what I am as an individual. So, I know there’s a name for it, but I don’t know what to call it. And my life is a movie. I just don’t do no acting. I just consider myself an artist. If someone was supposed to pick up a paintbrush and paint a picture, do you consider them a painter? You’d consider them an artist. A poet is an artist. So I just consider myself an artist. Maybe other individuals like to dissect and put it under a microscope. But those who get it get it, and those who don’t get it won’t ever get it.”
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Kevin Gates recently released By Any Means, a project that received a 3.5 out of 5 in its HipHopDX review.
“By Any Means is a lean 56 minutes, though Gates still finds room to entertain his schizophrenic tendencies,” HipHopDX said of the collection. “Consider his personal favorite, ‘Posed to Be in Love,’ where he croons but also threatens to ‘toilet-bowl drown’ and beat a woman up like Chris Brown, when he discovers that she cheated on him. At the occasional screams, ‘Posed’ vaguely echoes the odes to abusive relationships by a Rapper who Gates admires. A year after he included an Eminem tribute in The Luca Brasi Story, ‘Posed to Be in Love’ helps emphasize that ‘Marshall Mathers’ may not be wishful thinking for much longer.”
RELATED:Kevin Gates – By Any Means [Review]
