Yasiin Bey Quotes
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Don't look down, it's an impossible view; Fly like an eagle whatever you do.
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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!'
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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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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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Fame is like getting across the street. It's like, if there's nothing to be across the street for, it's a pointless destination. It's like, "I gotta get across the street, man! I gotta be there! I gotta be there!" Then you get across the street and you're like, "Yeah I'm here!" And then, that's it. Fame doesn't make you particularly happy.
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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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Restlessness is my nemesis. It's hard to just chill and sit still.
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Crack mothers, crack babies and AIDS patients Youngbloods can't spell, but they could rock you in PlayStation.
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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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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'm trying to get low. People's personalities can get in the way of their own work.
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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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I learned [playing Chuck Berry] that there's something to be said for the courage of conviction, that sense of belief, being bold enough to believe in your vision. And there's a quote that really fits his particular energy. It says - they say don't go where the path may lead, but go where there's no path and leave a trail. I think that's exactly what Chuck did, you know. It's an inspiration to a lot of folks, not just musicians, but people everywhere.
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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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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 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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That idea of peace and love toward humanity shouldn't be nationalistic or denominational. It should be a chief concern for all mankind.
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I don't hate nobody. I hate certain conditions that are inflicted upon the people - and they're helpless with it.
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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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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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With guys I revere, like Marcus Garvey or Malcolm X, their look is less about style than purpose and the expression of beauty. It wasn't just about being noticed, you know?
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I was taught when there's somethin' you can change around keep quiet, you got nothin' to complain about.
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Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years, it's a name that the streets taught me, a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment, and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name. [But] it's time to expand and move on.
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Focused. I'm a hustler. And my hustle is trying to figure out the best ways to do what I like without having to do much else.