Talib Kweli Quotes
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I have enough rhythm to blend at this point. I have enough rhythm to blend one song into another. But man, I have such respect for the art of deejaying. I hesitate to even call myself a deejay.
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Nowadays rap artists coming half-hearted, Commercial like pop, or underground like black markets. Where were you the day hip-hop died? Is it too early to mourn? Is it too late to ride?
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I'd like to work with Outkast, I'd like to work with RZA, I'd like to work with Timbaland, York, a whole bunch of people.
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People didn't really take white rappers seriously until Eminem, because he was better than everybody. Like female emcees, you need to be like Lauryn Hill or Nicki Minaj or killing everything before somebody takes you seriously.
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If you go to a college campus and you do stop and frisk, you're going to find a lot of drugs there too.
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Harry Belafonte hit me to the Dream Defenders and I liked what they were about. When I asked them how I could help their movement, they said, "You can help by coming down here; you can tweet."
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If you ain't using all the talents God provided you with For the betterment of Man, understand, You ain't nothing but a waste.
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Coltrane had a sax, Dale Earnhardt drives a race car and everybody has their tools.
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My parents are my biggest influences. My parents and my city. Brooklyn, New York, New York City, the community I grew up. I don't feel like I'm special in that. I feel like that's everybody.
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Artists make art for themselves. Art is an honest expression. Artists who pander to their fans by trying to make music "for" their fans make empty, transparent art. The true fan does not want you to make music for them, they want you to make music for you, because that's the whole reason they fell in love with you in the first place.
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Hip hop is at its essence a folk music, because it speaks the language that people are still speaking at ground zero, it speaks the language that people speak on the streets.
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I have a luxury of people coming to see me whether I play for the crowd or not. I don't take that lightly.
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I look at the deejay thing as a tier thing. If I'm not going to compete on that level, I'm just going to do it as a hobby.
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I feel like people mislead themselves when they tell themselves they're into me because of the lyrics. From my vantage point, people aren't into me because of the content, because of the lyrics. Because there's a million of rappers who have great content.
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I see that happening with hip hop purists now. Where you have an artist like a Kendrick [Lamar] or a Drake, who are really trying different things emotionally, different things musically, and on a mainstream level. And you have underground hip hop fans dissing it, for the simple fact that it's mainstream - not because what they're doing is whack, or what they're doing is not sincere.
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They ask me what I'm writing for - I'm writing to show you what we're fighting for.
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Let me finish my music, and let me present it the way I want to present it. And then share it, put it online, do whatever you want to do after that.
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I look at the deejay thing as something - I'm good at it because I have my own music. I have enough rhythm to blend at this point.
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No one likes to be treated like people in minority communities. What it's saying is that because you're poor, because you live in a neighborhood that deals with oppressed conditions, you deserve to be treated like a criminal. In our Constitution it says you have the right to live without illegal search and seizure.
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I listened to a mind joint, and I wanted to do my own version of it, and what you hear on my mixtape is my take on what the whole CD sounds like.
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As far as my New York influence, one thing I'm proud of in my career is, I rep Brooklyn, New York all day. But people don't look at my music as New York music. People consider my music underground music.
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You can have your own opinion, but not your own facts.
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Who you? Your name smaller than fine grains in couscous It's the highest calibre, your calibre is deuce deuce
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A true artist does not depend on radio for success. A true fan does not let radio determine what they support