Talib Kweli Quotes
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You have to know when to be arrogant. You have to when to be humble. You have to know when to be hard and you have to know when to be soft.
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I think music sharing of any kind is great.
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Young kids should be doing music that has shock value. They'll grow out of it.
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What is Norah Jones' style? Is it just the albums that we've heard? She has a rock group where she plays guitar in, downtown in New York, so do we really know her style?
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I started rapping because I wanted people to hear what I have to say, I want as many people to hear me as possible, and I do everything in my power to make that pop.
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There just needs to be a gay rapper. He doesn't have to be flamboyant, just a rapper who identifies as gay - who's better than everybody. Unfortunately hip-hop is so competitive that in order for fringe groups to get in, you gotta be better than whoever's the best.
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I like collaboration because, first of all, I'm good at writing lyrics. I don't know how to make beats. I don't play instruments. I'm not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it's still a collaboration.
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The problem with our role is Americans live in a world of illusion.
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We commute through computers. Spirits stay mute while our ego spread rumors. We're survivalists turned to consumers
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I'm at a loss for words. But even my loss is amplified.
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When Occupy Wall Street happened, I took my money out of Citibank. I already had problems with all the banks - Citibank, Bank of America - but I was kind of just too lazy to take my money out until I saw how Citibank responded to Occupy Wall Street.
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I tour whether I have album out or not. I tour more than any other hip-hop artist.
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My kids are the most inspiring thing that pushes me. It used to be because they were born, and I had to take care of them. Now it's because my son raps, and he's better than me. So now I gotta keep up with him, you know what I'm saying?
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You know, I've learned a lot from every person I've collaborated with, from Madlib to Jean Grae and Hi-Tek, to Mos to DJ Quik, to even somebody like Jermaine Dupri. I've taken something important away from every experience.
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At exactly which point do you start to realize, that life without knowledge is death in disguise?
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I don't go into any album with pressing issues. I just try to write songs.
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These cats drink champagne and toast to death and pain, Like slaves on a ship talking about who's got the flyest chain
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War is not civilized.
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Hip-hop isn't as complex as a woman is.
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We're in an illusion about what our role is in world politics and foreign affairs, and our policies are killing and destroying and doing a lot of things that we are not aware of.
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It doesn't get any more underground, conscious or indie than Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, but because they got a couple of really big pop hits, actually some of the biggest pop hits that hip-hop has ever seen, people are missing that part of their story. People are not counting that blessing.
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Honestly, you have to take care of yourself. That's probably something I have learned on the road.
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Before Eminem, the idea that there would be a white rapper that anybody would really check for was fantastic or amazing or impossible.
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My fondest memories were watching the Beastie Boys get prepped to come on stage. They had a lot of antics and they play a lot of basketball... then they were giving out cameras to the crowd, and performing from the bleachers. The most important thing I learned was that you control your crowd, not the other way around.