Top 177 Quotes & Sayings by Talib Kweli
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Talib Kweli.
Last updated on September 16, 2024.
People consider Black Star a great album, and I think it's a classic album. But the fact is, both me and Mos Def have made better albums since Black Star.
Hi-Tek is on three or four songs on the new record.
You have to learn how to harness technology so you can use it for positive stuff without being disconnected from nature.
I think its man's nature to go to war and fight.
But you have to be creative on how you sell yourself and market yourself.
There's a lot of activism that doesn't deal with empowerment, and you have to empower yourself in order to be relevant to any type of struggle.
I will never do a record without some sense of responsibility.
I not only wanted to showcase lyrical skills but also continue to drop knowledge on the hiphop community. I'm looking to elevate through my music, and through my music I educate.
You know, there's a lot of activism that doesn't deal with empowerment, and you have to empower yourself in order to be relevant to any type of struggle.
The responsibility of an artist is to be honest with themselves.
So I think hip-hop is moving and is going to continue to move in the direction of rappers just being honest with themselves, whether you're talking about Common and Mos Def or Nas and 50 cent.
You have to know when to be arrogant. You have to when to be humble. You have to know when to be hard and you have to know when to be soft.
I'm at a loss for words. But even my loss is amplified.
When I look at the arc of my career, my focus is on lyricism, right? I own that.
Honestly, you have to take care of yourself. That's probably something I have learned on the road.
As far as being on a major label, some labels get it and get what they have to do, and some labels don't. I don't think the label I'm on necessarily gets it, but I think over time they're gonna have to.
The way I see it, if people truly love my music, they will support me in some way down the road.
I think hip hop is a dance music that's rebellious by nature.
My kids are the most inspiring thing that pushes me. It used to be because they were born, and I had to take care of them. Now it's because my son raps, and he's better than me. So now I gotta keep up with him, you know what I'm saying?
We're in an illusion about what our role is in world politics and foreign affairs, and our policies are killing and destroying and doing a lot of things that we are not aware of.
I'm not looking to set a standard... but, I believe I have offered a challenge to others with my work.
I think hip-hop is no more misogynistic than America is as a society. I just think hip-hop is a lot more brash, a lot more bold, a lot more loquacious. There are a lot more words that go into a hip-hop song than go into a regular song.
The problem with our role is Americans live in a world of illusion.
I think once you're in the public eye, whether you're a boss, a teacher or whatever you do, that you're automatically in the position of role model. You have people looking up to you, so whether you choose to accept it or not is a different question.
I remember looking back on a photo of me... wearing a suit that was, like, two sizes too big for me. I think a lot of guys don't know what fits.
Skip the religion and politics, head straight to the compassion. Everything else is a distraction.
Once you're signed to a label you compromise.
And you know, art as commerce, doesn't really make too much sense, they don't go together.
Ain't nobody making music to not be heard and the easiest way to be heard is to be on the radio, but you should never compromise who you are, your values or your morals.
If you look at my career, doing albums with Norah Jones, Justin Timberlake, Gucci Mane and Lil Wayne or KRS-One and Jean Grae, I can't be pigeonholed.
But it becomes disrespectful when the artist's process is not respected.
Hip-hop isn't as complex as a woman is.
Being called a conscious rapper is quite a compliment. It's a great thing to be. But as an artist, my nature is to not be in a box.
I started rapping because I wanted people to hear what I have to say, I want as many people to hear me as possible, and I do everything in my power to make that pop.
I don't feel comfortable making empty music.
My musical influence is really from my father. He was a DJ in college. My parents met at New York University. So he listened to, you know, Motown, and he listened to Bob Dylan. He listened to Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones, but he also listened to reggae music. And he collected vinyl.
So I just had to step up how I was doing it and the moment that I stepped up and the moment I focused all my energy on that is when things started to happen. So there's a direct relationship between my inspiration and my output.
War is not civilized.
My fondest memories were watching the Beastie Boys get prepped to come on stage. They had a lot of antics and they play a lot of basketball... then they were giving out cameras to the crowd, and performing from the bleachers. The most important thing I learned was that you control your crowd, not the other way around.
Well if somebody's giving me a script, I'll consider it. But it's not something I'm chasing.
Artists look at the environment, and the best artists correctly diagnose the problem. I'm not saying artists can't be leaders, but that's not the job of art, to lead. Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte - there are artists all through history who have become leaders, but that was already in them, nothing to do with their art.
Young kids should be doing music that has shock value. They'll grow out of it.
You'll be fooled if you only get your hip-hop from the mainstream, you know. The things that move people are not just found in the mainstream cultures. And when we talk about hip-hop in general, hip-hop's basically preoccupied with life.
That's what hip-hop is: It's sociology and English put to a beat, you know.
The beautiful thing about hip-hop is it's like an audio collage. You can take any form of music and do it in a hip-hop way and it'll be a hip-hop song. That's the only music you can do that with.
Homosexuality in hip-hop is an extension of homosexuality in the black community. The black community is very, very conservative when it comes to homosexuality, and I don't mean conservative in the good way, like we're saving money. I mean very intolerant.
I think all those artists are artists who are appreciated because you believe their words and you appreciate their honesty in their music. If you don't appreciate the honesty in the music, the beat can be fly as hell but you'll never give an emcee props.
I don't think that early hip hop stood out to be a social critique. A lot of fans of mine think that hip hop's ultimate responsibility is to critique social structures.
People can be inspired the way I've been inspired by music.
A lot of these people, these program directors, just like anybody else in the world, even though they're supposed to be leaders in the world, they're followers. They follow what they think someone else is doing, instead of trying to blaze a trail.
You make knowledge relevant to life and you make it important for children to learn things that will really relate to things going on in their lives, and not abstract.
Woman are complex creatures.
I think music sharing of any kind is great.
I met Mos Def around that time but I didn't hook up with him until I was about 17 or 18.
Being called 'conscious' is a great thing to be, but it's the connotations and preconceived notions that come with the buying audience about what conscious music can be.
Hip-hop is a vehicle.
You gotta eat right, you gotta have healthy habits, you know, and balance out your decadence with a healthy lifestyle during the day.
What's more condescending and corny than someone telling you how much more money they have than you and telling you basically, 'I don't care about poor people,' which is a large part of what you hear of corporate hip-hop on the radio.
Even an independent label is looking for a hit, they're not looking for a record that's not gonna do well.
You know, I've learned a lot from every person I've collaborated with, from Madlib to Jean Grae and Hi-Tek, to Mos to DJ Quik, to even somebody like Jermaine Dupri. I've taken something important away from every experience.
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