Black Star Quotes
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In the early '90s, when I really started to find my voice, I was reading a lot of books, and I was moved by the writers, like Chinua Achebe, and I wanted to be able to write rhymes that were as potent as what I was reading.
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The test in life nowadays is just trying to keep yourself charged up with enough good feeling. It's like, "OK what am I going to do to feel really good today?" Not like, some chick or a drink.
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Record companies are not necessarily interested in you realizing your artistic dream. The bottom line is that they got to sell records.
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Don't look down, it's an impossible view; Fly like an eagle whatever you do.
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When I met you it was magic... We polar opposites, but attracted like we was magnets.
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I'm a passionate person. I'm a lot of things, like most people are. Most people are dynamic. The focus is not on me though, I'm a screen. The aim is to always keep myself in the position where the screen is clear.
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It’s very seductive to focus on what you don’t like as opposed to celebrating all that it is that you do.
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There was a time when hip-hop was its own musical principle, aside from sampling. Like the entire Wild Style break is instrumental. Kurtis Blow's earliest stuff was studio musicians playing. Whodini had a real clear sound, things like "five minutes of funk," stuff that you could write really beautiful, lush string and horn arrangements around, stuff that was just music.
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I can't take it y'all I can feel the city breathin Chest heavin, against the flesh of the evening Sigh before we die like the last train leaving
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You can positively affect and change a social circumstance with art, and it’s vital that a change happens now.
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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.
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Restlessness is my nemesis. It's hard to just chill and sit still.
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You see somebody rapping and you're like, "Nah, my cousin can do that." You're spoiled by the experience. Overseas, it's still something that people can appreciate.
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Or is it the mind state that's ill, creating crime rates to fill the new prisons the build
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I think hip-hop is actually one of the most challenging things that's happened in music in a long time. The people who are in charge of what people see or hear are afraid. What you hear on top 40 or what you see on BET or MTV is not a fair representation of what is really going on...
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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?
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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.
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But Rawkus is integral to what I do, because the cats who started Rawkus are the first ones who really saw my vision, and gave me a platform to get it out there, so I'm definitely totally grateful for that.
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Michael Jordan on the court is a completely different guy. If the play requires him to leap out all the way and grab the ball, that's what he'll do. He may be a completely shy, withdrawn sort of person [off the court].
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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.
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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.
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That idea of peace and love toward humanity shouldn't be nationalistic or denominational. It should be a chief concern for all mankind.
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If lyrics sold then truth be told/I'd probably be just as rich and famous as Jay-Z.
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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.