Talib Kweli Quotes
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You make knowledge relevant to life and you make it important for children to learn things that will really relate to things going on in their lives, and not abstract.
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Young kids should be doing music that has shock value. They'll grow out of it.
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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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There's consciousness in my music, and my music comes from a conscious place. And when people say that, I certainly take it as a compliment. But my job, in terms of selling my music, is to be universal and to try to get it to everybody.
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Life without knowledge is death in disguise.
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You'll be fooled if you only get your hip-hop from the mainstream, you know. The things that move people are not just found in the mainstream cultures. And when we talk about hip-hop in general, hip-hop's basically preoccupied with life.
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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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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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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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Artists look at the environment, and the best artists correctly diagnose the problem. I'm not saying artists can't be leaders, but that's not the job of art, to lead. Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte - there are artists all through history who have become leaders, but that was already in them, nothing to do with their art.
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We speak the love language, they speak from pain and anguish. Some don't love theyselves, so they perception is tainted.
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I'm at a loss for words. But even my loss is amplified.
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I think that I am seeing the Internet and seeing technology take and seeing how the work I do through music directly affects people's lives better than any politician I've ever met.
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I think once you're in the public eye, whether you're a boss, a teacher or whatever you do, that you're automatically in the position of role model. You have people looking up to you, so whether you choose to accept it or not is a different question.
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Hip-hop isn't as complex as a woman is.
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I'm a fan of Bjork, a fan of Premier, you know, those are the first two names that come to my mind. 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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We played against each other like puppets, swearing you got pull When the only pull you got is the wool over your eyes Getting knowledge in jail like a blessing in disguise Look in the skies for god, what you see besides the smog Is broken dreams flying away on the wings of the obscene.
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People can be inspired the way I've been inspired by music.
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I remember looking back on a photo of me... wearing a suit that was, like, two sizes too big for me. I think a lot of guys don't know what fits.
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These niggas ain't thugs, the real thugs is the government. Don't matter if you're Independent, Democrat or Republican
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I will never do a record without some sense of responsibility.
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I am not a prisoner of conscious, but people try to make me one sometimes. It is both a gift and a curse. It's a high honour but can create limitations - I have to be fluid.
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Once you're signed to a label you compromise.