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If Islam's sole interest is the welfare of mankind, then Islam is the strongest advocate of human rights anywhere on Earth.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
A true artist does not depend on radio for success. A true fan does not let radio determine what they support
Talib Kweli Black Star
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I've always loved rhyming. I love language.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
You gotta get back to your essence, Use your gifts and share your presence, Don't count your dollars 'til you count your blessings.
Talib Kweli Black Star -
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.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
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.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
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.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
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.
Yasiin Bey Black Star
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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.
Yasiin Bey 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 -
History has proven that it's impossible to crush the artist. There's always gonna be a need for somebody to write a poem or sing a song about something, about life - that makes it real. There's the word that goes beyond the word.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
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.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
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.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
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
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Now people won't beat you up if you are gay; they might just talk behind your back.
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 -
Why give you the cure when the disease makes money?
Talib Kweli Black Star -
I got my first exposure to Islam when I was 13.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
Live now for the promise of the Infinite
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
When I met you it was magic... We polar opposites, but attracted like we was magnets.
Talib Kweli Black Star
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A flower that grow in the ghetto know more about survival than the one from fresh meadows.
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 -
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.
Yasiin Bey Black Star -
Hopefully, we learn to appreciate hip-hop here so that it doesn't go the way of jazz.
Talib Kweli Black Star