Black Star Quotes
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I tell people all the time, I've always loved music and I love the language, which is a huge reason why I'm part of theater. But, I didn't wanna do all of this. I would've been satisfied to do it, like, on the weekends among friends, and to have a regular job.
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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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But there's so many things in life like women, like children, like God and family that transcends the world of hip-hop.
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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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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."
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If it's just fame for the sake of being famous, no one even cares about you - and you don't even care about yourself because you're like, "This is so ridiculous."
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The moment you start thinking it's hopeless, then it is. [But], if you think it's gonna get better, it really does. Life is a test.
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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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Restlessness is my nemesis. It's hard to just chill and sit still.
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Fame is like getting across the street. It's like, if there's nothing to be across the street for, it's a pointless destination. It's like, "I gotta get across the street, man! I gotta be there! I gotta be there!" Then you get across the street and you're like, "Yeah I'm here!" And then, that's it. Fame doesn't make you particularly happy.
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I've always loved rhyming. I love language.
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I got my first exposure to Islam when I was 13.
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Why give you the cure when the disease makes money?
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Truthfully I wanna rhyme like common senseNext best thing I do a record with common sense
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When people say I don't see you enough, well just because you don't see me don't mean I don't exist or just 'cause you haven't heard me don't mean I haven't been making noise. But if I keep making noise, you'll pick up.
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Don't look down, it's an impossible view; Fly like an eagle whatever you do.
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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.
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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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I just don't think it's very dignified to ask people to like you. You can just wind up being somebody's ottoman.
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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.
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Hopefully, we learn to appreciate hip-hop here so that it doesn't go the way of jazz.
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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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Live now for the promise of the Infinite
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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.