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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.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
There just needs to be a gay rapper who's better than everybody. That's when that question will no longer be able to be asked.
Talib Kweli Black Star
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I gotta be dope first. I gotta be appealing to your senses, and to what you like first. Then the message happens. Then you relate to the message.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
Now people won't beat you up if you are gay; they might just talk behind your back.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
Why give you the cure when the disease makes money?
Talib Kweli Black Star -
When I met you it was magic... We polar opposites, but attracted like we was magnets.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
When I was a teenager, the way some of these kids out here be actively gay, it would have been ridiculed in the hood. And now the hood is a bit more accepting. Begrudgingly accepting, but definitely more accepting than 20 years ago when I was a little kid. That doesn't mean that anybody should stop fighting for equality just because people are begrudgingly a little more accepting.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
A flower that grow in the ghetto know more about survival than the one from fresh meadows.
Talib Kweli Black Star
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I'm not an artist that has a big, huge radio record that's going to be on BET. I'm not, at this point, gunning for like, "Oh, I'm gonna kill them in the first week." But as people slowly discover the album they realize it's better than a lot of what they've been listening to all year.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
Hopefully, we learn to appreciate hip-hop here so that it doesn't go the way of jazz.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
Just because someone has great content doesn't mean you like them as a rapper.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
To be honest, that whole exchange with Crunk Feminist actually made me write the song because I realize there's a lot of young women out there so hurt by the misogynistic images in hip-hop they paint it with such a broad brush stroke that they think anybody that defends hip-hop is defending misogyny.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
With Prisoner of Conscience, the focus was - I've worked with Madlib, High Tech, Kanye West, J Dilla. I feel like I've worked with some of the greatest of all time. That's been overlooked. That's been overshadowed by the weight of the lyrics.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
I ignored your aura but it grabbed me by the hand, like the moon pulled the tide, and the tide pulled the sand.
Talib Kweli Black Star
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Or is it the mind state that's ill, creating crime rates to fill the new prisons the build
Talib Kweli Black Star -
It’s very seductive to focus on what you don’t like as opposed to celebrating all that it is that you do.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
My fans like to be romantic. I feel like I'm creating at least at the same level or even a higher level of creativity than I was at twenty-one. I've gotten better as an artist.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
"Art Imitates life," of course, is that phrase by Oscar Wilde. I called that song "Art Imitates Life" because Oh No was in the studio and he actually came up with that hook. When I was trying to figure out a name for the record, it just kind of made sense.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
The founder of Crunk Feminists is a Christian. If you claim to be a Christian, but then you attack somebody for saying you should approach a problem with love, you're not being a true Christian.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
Truthfully I wanna rhyme like common senseNext best thing I do a record with common sense
Talib Kweli Black Star
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If lyrics sold then truth be told/I'd probably be just as rich and famous as Jay-Z.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
We send young white boys to the Army. We're sending young black boys to the prisons.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
I have such respect for the art of deejaying. I hesitate to even call myself a deejay.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
When you shine bright, some won't enjoy the shadow you cast.
Talib Kweli Black Star