Yasiin Bey Quotes
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To me, the job of the artist is to provide a useful and intelligent vocabulary for the world to be able to articulate feelings they experience everyday, and otherwise wouldn't have the means to express in a meaningful and useful way.
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I just don't think it's very dignified to ask people to like you. You can just wind up being somebody's ottoman.
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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.
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I ain't no perfect man I'm tryna do the best that I can with what it is I have.
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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.
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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.
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I tell people all the time, I've always loved music and I love the language, which is a huge reason why I'm part of theater. But, I didn't wanna do all of this. I would've been satisfied to do it, like, on the weekends among friends, and to have a regular job.
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This thing called rhymin' is no different than coal minin'; We both on assignment to unearth the diamond.
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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.
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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."
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So rather than really have, like a close relationship to anything that's coming out today, people are just, they've got it on as background music. It's kind of the same way the cabdrivers use music; it's very disposable. But, that doesn't mean there aren't a great number of artists who are doing things to change that.
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In the early '90s, when I really started to find my voice, I was reading a lot of books, and I was moved by the writers, like Chinua Achebe, and I wanted to be able to write rhymes that were as potent as what I was reading.
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The test in life nowadays is just trying to keep yourself charged up with enough good feeling. It's like, "OK what am I going to do to feel really good today?" Not like, some chick or a drink.
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I'm a passionate person. I'm a lot of things, like most people are. Most people are dynamic. The focus is not on me though, I'm a screen. The aim is to always keep myself in the position where the screen is clear.
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Don't look down, it's an impossible view; Fly like an eagle whatever you do.
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Record companies are not necessarily interested in you realizing your artistic dream. The bottom line is that they got to sell records.
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There was a time when hip-hop was its own musical principle, aside from sampling. Like the entire Wild Style break is instrumental. Kurtis Blow's earliest stuff was studio musicians playing. Whodini had a real clear sound, things like "five minutes of funk," stuff that you could write really beautiful, lush string and horn arrangements around, stuff that was just music.
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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
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You can positively affect and change a social circumstance with art, and it’s vital that a change happens now.
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Restlessness is my nemesis. It's hard to just chill and sit still.
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I think hip-hop is actually one of the most challenging things that's happened in music in a long time. The people who are in charge of what people see or hear are afraid. What you hear on top 40 or what you see on BET or MTV is not a fair representation of what is really going on...
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Yo, it's 1 universal law but 2 sides to every story, 3 strikes and you be in for life, mandatory. 4 MC's murdered in the last 4 years, I ain't tryin to be the 5th one, the Millennium is here. Yo, it's 6 million ways to die, from the 7 deadly thrills, 8-year olds gettin' found with 9 mill's. It's 10 P.M., where your seeds at? What's the deal?
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Michael Jordan on the court is a completely different guy. If the play requires him to leap out all the way and grab the ball, that's what he'll do. He may be a completely shy, withdrawn sort of person [off the court].
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That idea of peace and love toward humanity shouldn't be nationalistic or denominational. It should be a chief concern for all mankind.