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Breathe in...inhale vapors from bright stars that shine, Breathe out...weed smoke retrace the skyline.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
African art is functional, it serves a purpose. It's not a dormant. It's not a means to collect the largest cheering section. It should be healing, a source a joy. Spreading positive vibrations.
Yasiin Bey Black Star
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That's what I've been trying to strive for - to draw a clear picture, to open up a new dimension.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
I want to be necessary and do good works. I ain't here to waste nobody's time, because I don't want you to waste mine.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
This thing called rhymin' is no different than coal minin'; We both on assignment to unearth the diamond.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
I've always loved music and I love the language, which is a huge reason why I'm part of theater.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
Peace before everything, God before anything, Love before anything, real before everything, Home before any place, shoot before anything, Style and state radiate, Love Power slay the hate.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
It's difficult to really be an artist nowadays. People are just on another page. You have a society that needs you to say something, but they don't want to give you the environment to be able to be just a functioning, happy, normal person. It's like, the industry is at odds with you, the society is at odds with you. You start to live in this very confined box where it's like, It's "me" and "them."
Yasiin Bey Black Star
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Crack mothers, crack babies and AIDS patients Youngbloods can't spell, but they could rock you in PlayStation.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
They say that when a man faces his destiny, the destiny ends and he becomes the man that he really is.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
I've been fortunate with my acting career. A lot of scripts come to me. I don't mind auditioning if something that requires that, but I haven't had to in awhile, which is a nice place to be 'cause I've been on quite a lot of auditions in my life.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
And from the moment that I saw you, I knew you was trouble, But I disregarded detour signs, And did not stop til you was mine. I guess God was like, 'Aight, fine.' Careful what you wish for, cause you just might get it in heaps. Try to give it back, He be like, 'Nah, that's yours to keep.'
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
You have to be an extremist to believe that you're gonna be the president of the United States and your name is Barack Hussein Obama! And he's using extreme methods, but his application is very smooth. Michelle Obama is extreme, her presence is extreme. And it's an extreme good. Extreme is not negative.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
I feel like being into the beat of your own drum has become too prominent in the culture.
Yasiin Bey Black Star
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I began to fear that Mos Def was being treated as a product, not a person, so I've been going by Yasiin since '99. At first it was just for friends and family, but now I'm declaring it openly.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
Restlessness is my nemesis. It's hard to just chill and sit still.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
You can positively affect and change a social circumstance with art, and it’s vital that a change happens now.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
Hip-hop is the last true folk art.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
I can't take it y'all I can feel the city breathin Chest heavin, against the flesh of the evening Sigh before we die like the last train leaving
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
I'm really quite bipolar, and the depressed times, when everything felt like night, sometimes you get to such a low point that you physically beat at it until it bleeds - as you would say - bleeds till sunshine. You get to a point where you say, 'I will not take it anymore! I'm gonna do something drastic if I stay this depressed. I've got to break out of there!'
Yasiin Bey Black Star
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If it's just fame for the sake of being famous, no one even cares about you - and you don't even care about yourself because you're like, "This is so ridiculous."
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
When people say I don't see you enough, well just because you don't see me don't mean I don't exist or just 'cause you haven't heard me don't mean I haven't been making noise. But if I keep making noise, you'll pick up.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
I've always loved rhyming. I love language.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
I'm an independent thinker. And I'm not the poster child for any movement. I'm trying to support whatever's right no matter where it is.
Yasiin Bey Black Star