Top 175 Quotes & Sayings by KRS-One - Page 2

There was no hip-hop before Afrika Bambaataa.

Radio has always been just disgusting.

I'm the most humble rapper in the industry.

The idea of New Zealanders sounding like Americans is not it. You got to rhyme in your language, your accent.

Before I came out, there was no such thing as a black conciousness movement. Kids on the street didn't know who Malcom X or Martin Luther King was until rap let them know.

The Temple of Hip-Hop makes sure that we don't just approach hip-hop just through music or through rap. We approach the totality of hip-hop.

DMX - everything this brother spits is hot. Everything. This is the heat right here. When I stand next to MCs, this is who I wanna stand next to.

Jermaine Dupri is a b-boy, and he's dope.

I'm here to inspire young people to be part of the most magnificent culture on earth: hip-hop.

The only solution to the education system is to find yourself.

When I was about 15 years old, I began to embark on an MC career but also to study philosophy with an emphasis on theology.

I look at it like this: you may only sell 20,000 to 100,000 albums. But those albums are going to be heard by future doctors, lawyers, judges, firemen, etc. Those albums are being sold to the right people that move society. They're interested in what you have to say.

I do have a desire to bring a spiritual tone to the hip-hop community, which may force me to open a facility that teaches spiritual principles through the language of hip-hop culture.

Why isn't there any 50-year-old MCs killing it? I'm 46. Am I the only one? I can't wait to get to 50. I'm going to let everybody know it! I'm going to wear a shirt that says 'I'm 50.'

I kind of backed into rap music. I thought I was going to do comic books or graphic art.

Ask any rapper or singer what artist they are an expert on. What artist are they looking to emulate, and really, what artist is the one person they are an expert on? You see, if you want any kind of longevity, if you want any kind of legacy, you need to know what ancestral line you are from.

For KRS-One, I have a specific sound - sparse drums and bass. I try to steer away from elaborate productions.

I came from the heart of the ghetto - there ain't no suburbia in me.

I don't even want my music on mainstream radio. They don't deserve it. They destroy careers.

The only time you had blacks, whites, and Latinos jamming together was in hip-hop. It's an unsung history.

I existed before the mainstream. Why would I join them? I watched the mainstream come up, and now I'm watching it collapse. I don't want to be a part of that.

I was born in Hip Hop. That's all I ever needed.

Every generation brings its own presentation of what hip-hop is to them.

No child is racist. A child is born, and then they go through the educational system.

I don't sell millions of records. As a matter of fact, I'm not even interested in selling millions of records. I enjoy MCing. I make a decent amount of money. I can feed my kids. I keep a roof over my head. I don't have to sell a million records to maintain my lifestyle.

Rap is no longer a pastime; this is a worldwide profession.

I would say my flow is Aboriginal. Look at my face, nose, lips, and eyes.

When you know the law, you're above the law. When you break the law, you're under the law.

Young people may be stupid at times, but they respond to the truth when it is present, and for them, KRS-One is the truth!

How can you call yourself a cosmopolitan modern person if you don't know what hip-hop is?

If you vote for evil, you are evil yourself.

Original hip hop manipulated technologies of all sorts; it was not manipulated by the technology itself.

Everything God wants you to know is already written in your heart.

If the radio ever played my music, I would sue them. And they know it, which is why they don't play my music.

I don't need my fans to buy my music. My music is free, basically.

Hip Hop is an extension of our very being, and so the study of Hip Hop is the study of self-expression leading to the study of one's true self.

When you know your self-worth, and you read and you ask questions and you study and you travel, you become free.

In one sense, I wanted to study philosophy and theology, getting into the history of the Bible. I went through that for, like, two years while I took a desk job at Warners. It was very depressing but exhilarating at the same time.

I flew everywhere for the first 10 years of my career, and I started to not like commercial transport. I just don't feel safe.

Record companies feel they are the culture. Hip-hop has to begin to define, protect, and promote itself, and that's why we founded the Temple.

There could never really be justice on stolen land.

You got to have style, and learn to be original.

Educate yourself make your world view bigger, visualize wealth, and put yourself in the picture

Black people are just constantly immature in their thinking, undisciplined, and we suffer as a people. This is not about race in the sense that black people got to get something better than whites or Latinos or Asians. This is just basically that we keep complaining about what we don't have and what we can't do, and then, when we get in positions to do stuff, we fight amongst ourselves like savages.

Rappers spit rhymes that are mostly illegal, MC's spit rhymes to uplift their people.

Rap is something you do Hip Hop is something you live

When I say hip-hoppers, I mean black, white, Asian, Latino, Chicano, everybody. Everybody. Hip-hop has united all races. Hip-hop has formed a platform for all people, religions, and occupations to meet on something. We all have a platform to meet on now, due to hip-hop. That, to me, is beyond music. That is just a brilliant, brilliant thing.

Trust in God, that's where the crown is at. It's not in what you get, it's what happens after that.

Kings lose crowns but teachers stay intelligent

I grew up in them streets, like everyone else but instead of pushin' drugs, I pushed knowledge of self

I am the manifestation of study, NOT the manifestation of money. Therefore, I advance through thought, NOT what's manufactured and bought.

Ignorance is a poison and knowledge will nourish.

Love yourself and your expression, you can't go wrong.

I'd rather make one righteous dollar on my level Than make a million dollars spittin' rhymes for the devil.

Hip is to know, it's a form of intelligence. To be hip is to be update and relevant. Hop is a form of movement, you can't just observe a hop, you gotta hop up and do it. Hip and hop is more than music Hip is the Knowledge, hop is the Movement. Hip and Hop is Intelligent movement

Take a look at the police and how they treat you, Take a look at these corporations that cheat you. Democrats and Republicans are all see-through. Now we votin for the lesser of two evils... Man, don't let 'em deceive you. This is an autocracy, not a democracy, But to call this a democracy without mock interest In the laws of society? That's called hypocrisy.

If Hip Hop has the ability to corrupt young minds, it also has the ability to Uplift them.

The courage to be yourself is the essence of hip hop

You know, you don't see with your eyes You see with your brain And the more words your brain has The more things you can see

If we have power to degrade an entire society, then we also have the power to uplift it.