Talib Kweli Quotes
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When I'm in the studio, I'm strictly thinking about the beats, the rhymes and the song. The decision I make once the songs are created, and there's a barcode put on the package, and I'm out there in the street selling it, those decisions as a businessman are different than the creative decisions you make.
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I take certain steps to make sure I'm relevant artistically. I always have new music and a reason to be on the road. I'm not just playing 'Get By' over and over. I have 12 albums.
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I ignored your aura but it grabbed me by the hand, like the moon pulled the tide, and the tide pulled the sand.
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I think its man's nature to go to war and fight.
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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.
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Even an independent label is looking for a hit, they're not looking for a record that's not gonna do well.
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If I'm performing with a DJ, it's all on me to draw the energy. I like the camaraderie of a band.
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You have to learn how to harness technology so you can use it for positive stuff without being disconnected from nature.
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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 musical influence is really from my father. He was a DJ in college. My parents met at New York University. So he listened to, you know, Motown, and he listened to Bob Dylan. He listened to Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones, but he also listened to reggae music. And he collected vinyl.
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I think hip hop is a dance music that's rebellious by nature.
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War is not civilized.
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I think all those artists are artists who are appreciated because you believe their words and you appreciate their honesty in their music. If you don't appreciate the honesty in the music, the beat can be fly as hell but you'll never give an emcee props.
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So I just had to step up how I was doing it and the moment that I stepped up and the moment I focused all my energy on that is when things started to happen. So there's a direct relationship between my inspiration and my output.
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I feel like your city - with hip hop in particular, because we're always beating our chest and shouting where we're from - your city is just as influential as your parents. Even the grimy, hardcore gangster rap from New York - KRS-One and Wu Tang, the stuff acknowledges it.
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The responsibility of an artist is to be honest with themselves.
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Creating crime rates to fill the new prisons they build Over money and religion theres more blood that spills Like the wounds of slaves in cotton fields that never heal Whats the deal?
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Hi-Tek is on three or four songs on the new record.
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Homosexuality in hip-hop is an extension of homosexuality in the black community. The black community is very, very conservative when it comes to homosexuality, and I don't mean conservative in the good way, like we're saving money. I mean very intolerant.
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I'm spinning records and I look across the restaurant and I see somebody who looks Asian. And I'm like, "Yo, that looks like Yoko Ono." I'm like, oh, I can just meet - that's going to be great. Then I look carefully and I'm like, "That's not Yoko Ono, that's Bruno Mars." And it was Bruno Mars. That just happened recently. I was bugging out. Because that was totally not Yoko Ono at all.
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When you have a voice and a platform and you know better, it becomes your moral obligation to support that community. And by extension, you're supporting your family.
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I don't think that early hip hop stood out to be a social critique. A lot of fans of mine think that hip hop's ultimate responsibility is to critique social structures.
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Persistance, dedication Consistent, motivation, resistance to stagnation of information, distribute it free to the entire population No hesitation, makin it public No privitazation from corporations
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I don't go into any album with pressing issues. I just try to write songs.