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I'm doing exactly what I was supposed to do. Yeah. I didn't exactly choose this. My own life, if it were up to me, would be very, very quiet. I'd be like a shopkeeper, a book collector, or something like that. I'm not like this. Myself as a performer and an artist is totally different from who I am.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
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.
Talib Kweli Black Star
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I don't care if Rick Ross is 40 years old -- he's a misguided 40-year-old person.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
African art is functional, it serves a purpose. It's not a dormant. It's not a means to collect the largest cheering section. It should be healing, a source a joy. Spreading positive vibrations.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
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.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
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.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
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.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
That's what I've been trying to strive for - to draw a clear picture, to open up a new dimension.
Yasiin Bey Black Star
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I want to be necessary and do good works. I ain't here to waste nobody's time, because I don't want you to waste mine.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
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.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
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.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
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.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
They say that when a man faces his destiny, the destiny ends and he becomes the man that he really is.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
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.
Talib Kweli Black Star
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I've always loved music and I love the language, which is a huge reason why I'm part of theater.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
If you go to a college campus and you do stop and frisk, you're going to find a lot of drugs there too.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
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.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
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.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
And from the moment that I saw you, I knew you was trouble, But I disregarded detour signs, And did not stop til you was mine. I guess God was like, 'Aight, fine.' Careful what you wish for, cause you just might get it in heaps. Try to give it back, He be like, 'Nah, that's yours to keep.'
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
You can have your own opinion, but not your own facts.
Talib Kweli Black Star
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This thing called rhymin' is no different than coal minin'; We both on assignment to unearth the diamond.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
Peace before everything, God before anything, Love before anything, real before everything, Home before any place, shoot before anything, Style and state radiate, Love Power slay the hate.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
It's difficult to really be an artist nowadays. People are just on another page. You have a society that needs you to say something, but they don't want to give you the environment to be able to be just a functioning, happy, normal person. It's like, the industry is at odds with you, the society is at odds with you. You start to live in this very confined box where it's like, It's "me" and "them."
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
I've been fortunate with my acting career. A lot of scripts come to me. I don't mind auditioning if something that requires that, but I haven't had to in awhile, which is a nice place to be 'cause I've been on quite a lot of auditions in my life.
Yasiin Bey Black Star