Black Star Quotes
- All Quotes
- News Quotes
-
You can positively affect and change a social circumstance with art, and it’s vital that a change happens now.
-
When I met you it was magic... We polar opposites, but attracted like we was magnets.
-
Focused. I'm a hustler. And my hustle is trying to figure out the best ways to do what I like without having to do much else.
-
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.
-
So rather than really have, like a close relationship to anything that's coming out today, people are just, they've got it on as background music. It's kind of the same way the cabdrivers use music; it's very disposable. But, that doesn't mean there aren't a great number of artists who are doing things to change that.
-
I got my first exposure to Islam when I was 13.
-
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.
-
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.
-
A flower that grow in the ghetto know more about survival than the one from fresh meadows.
-
I'm trying to get low. People's personalities can get in the way of their own work.
-
I think the biggest problem in our country is mass incarceration and the prison-industrial complex. From the Rockefeller drug laws to stand your ground to stop and frisk, all these are pointing people, especially and disproportionately black and brown people, towards the criminal-justice system. It's depleting whole generations of people.
-
Just because someone has great content doesn't mean you like them as a rapper.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Or is it the mind state that's ill, creating crime rates to fill the new prisons the build
-
Live now for the promise of the Infinite
-
I learned [playing Chuck Berry] that there's something to be said for the courage of conviction, that sense of belief, being bold enough to believe in your vision. And there's a quote that really fits his particular energy. It says - they say don't go where the path may lead, but go where there's no path and leave a trail. I think that's exactly what Chuck did, you know. It's an inspiration to a lot of folks, not just musicians, but people everywhere.
-
I have such respect for the art of deejaying. I hesitate to even call myself a deejay.
-
Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years, it's a name that the streets taught me, a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment, and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name. [But] it's time to expand and move on.
-
The thing is, allies is people who are friends, people you can rely on in the struggle. You're not always going to agree with your allies. For instance, Stevie Wonder I feel like is my ally when it comes to this Florida situation, but I don't agree with his strategy. That doesn't mean he isn't an ally.
-
I was taught when there's somethin' you can change around keep quiet, you got nothin' to complain about.
-
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.
-
Yo, it's 1 universal law but 2 sides to every story, 3 strikes and you be in for life, mandatory. 4 MC's murdered in the last 4 years, I ain't tryin to be the 5th one, the Millennium is here. Yo, it's 6 million ways to die, from the 7 deadly thrills, 8-year olds gettin' found with 9 mill's. It's 10 P.M., where your seeds at? What's the deal?
-
You gotta get back to your essence, Use your gifts and share your presence, Don't count your dollars 'til you count your blessings.