A Tribe Called Quest Quotes
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That's the beautiful thing about being an artist, is you can take risks and take chances and hopefully be secure enough to just keep going with it if you fall flat on your face.
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I grew up around electronic instruments. To me, the turntable is an electronic device. At the same time, I had access to drum machines and keyboards through my uncle; then track recorders into computers. At an early age, I was messing with computers more than most hip-hop musicians.
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How far must you go to gain respect? Um... Well, it's kind of simple: just remain your own. Or you'll be crazy sad and alone.
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With the black male as a teenager, where you're coming from the ghettos and that kind of stuff, you've got to assert yourself, be macho, not let anybody walk over you, so that's where all this unnecessary bullshit comes from - from egos. That's why there are a lot of fights. That's how come the whole thing with rap has been violent. It's because of the male ego.
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The thing that men and women need to do is stick together Progressions can't be made if we're separate forever
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I really care about what I put out, and probably more than the fans care. At times, I think I over-care. But I just know that the body of work has such a high standard that it's kind of like, in my own head, I need to at least match it if not get over that, so that's the challenge.
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I love New York. New York made me the man that I am, and I always rep it to the fullest, but right now it's completely different from what it was and anybody that says it's for the better is straight up lyin'. Straight up lyin'!
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One step at a time, a man walked on the moon. One record got played, Kool Herc said, 'Boom!'
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For the future, be true to yourself. If you're gonna be influenced by someone be influenced by them. Don't cop them so much that you're a clone. No one wants to deal with a clone. There's not that much more substance in being a clone, but definitely be influenced by people...take what you can from that and sculpt it into your own situation. In doing so, you'll be happy and I think your people will be happy listening to what you do.
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The basic idea of a hero rising up to represent an oppressed or disenfranchised group of people is as true to hip-hop as it is comic book lore.
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If you allow yourself to be closed, especially to a younger generation, then that's death. That's instant death.
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Hip-hop was the culture that I grew up with; I am part of this culture.
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Kanye West, I love you. You might not have known, but I have said in other interviews that you're my hero.
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Raphael Saadiq said to me, quite often, that Chuck D was his history teacher. And so he got a lot from the music, things that he wasn't getting maybe in school. And I feel the same way with regards to Earth, Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder.
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I think hip-hop needs a little bit of diversity.
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Much of hip-hop, like comic books, is fantastical by nature, too.
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When you are creating something artistically and are speaking to or representing a culture that you know truthfully, you are doing a good job.
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Yeah, me and Q-Tip is cool outside of the business, but you know, within the business sometimes it can get ugly, you know what I mean?
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People in the U.S. always got to be spoon-fed. If it's something to difficult to understand, they don't give it a chance. They want something real simple that they can sing along with and play in the clubs and that's about it. In the UK, their whole mind set is completely different.
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In 2016, the conversation of the black experience is so broad, and it's very raw. I mean, c'mon, we have a black president. That's a major thing, and there are so many other significant occurrences that have come from the '60s and '70s up to now.
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London is one of my favourite places to come to overseas.
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New York has changed a whole lot. For worse I think because back when I was growing up in New York we were always the trendsetters. I don't care if it was from clothes to hip-hop music, to whatever. Right now New York is a bunch of followers. A lot of them are. It's really not the same.
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There have been a lot of hip-hop artists who have made a difference to people's lives, spreading the message of the struggle and representing for those who have overcome adversity.
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I do think that hip-hop has a relationship with comic book culture, and Kung Fu movies too, for that matter.