Top 177 Quotes & Sayings by Talib Kweli - Page 2

I think the line is where you're in the studio, you're creating. That belongs to you as an artist. Nothing should taint that. I shouldn't be thinking about what the fans want, I shouldn't be thinking about what the radio wants, what the label wants, what your manager wants, a song for the chicks, a song for the street.

The only way for me to be an artist is to be honest in my craft. If I veer from that, I'm not giving the investors what they want. Sometimes it's my job as an artist to know what I want to do, even when the fans tell me different.

I take certain steps to make sure I'm relevant artistically. I always have new music and a reason to be on the road. I'm not just playing 'Get By' over and over. I have 12 albums.

I am not a prisoner of conscious, but people try to make me one sometimes. It is both a gift and a curse. It's a high honour but can create limitations - I have to be fluid.

I'm a fan of Bjork, a fan of Premier, you know, those are the first two names that come to my mind. 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.

I think that I am seeing the Internet and seeing technology take and seeing how the work I do through music directly affects people's lives better than any politician I've ever met.

There are staples to my show. I have to be conscious about switching things up because I know people who saw me last year will say, 'He did that last time.' But if certain things work, they work.

My personal take on politics is I deal with social situations and cultural situations in my music and in my life. I have said on record many times that I haven't voted. I'm not the type of person who says, 'I'm never going to vote.' I think it's clear to me that our system has failed us.

When I'm in the studio, I'm strictly thinking about the beats, the rhymes and the song. The decision I make once the songs are created, and there's a barcode put on the package, and I'm out there in the street selling it, those decisions as a businessman are different than the creative decisions you make.

There's consciousness in my music, and my music comes from a conscious place. And when people say that, I certainly take it as a compliment. But my job, in terms of selling my music, is to be universal and to try to get it to everybody.

Things are fluid in this world, and if you don't remain fluid, you get lost in the sauce.

I'm not an artist that has a big, huge radio record that's going to be on BET.

Before Eminem, the idea that there would be a white rapper that anybody would really check for was fantastic or amazing or impossible.

It doesn't get any more underground, conscious or indie than Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, but because they got a couple of really big pop hits, actually some of the biggest pop hits that hip-hop has ever seen, people are missing that part of their story. People are not counting that blessing.

I like collaboration because, first of all, I'm good at writing lyrics. I don't know how to make beats. I don't play instruments. I'm not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it's still a collaboration.

If I focus on being an activist and my job is to be a rapper, I'm not going to be as good of a rapper. I need to focus on hip-hop and focus on making the music, so that when the activists come to me and they need my voice to create a platform, then I've got enough people listening to me. Not because I'm conscious, but because I'm dope.

I don't go into any album with pressing issues. I just try to write songs.

I tour whether I have album out or not. I tour more than any other hip-hop artist.

What is Norah Jones' style? Is it just the albums that we've heard? She has a rock group where she plays guitar in, downtown in New York, so do we really know her style?

The materialism, the brashness, the misogyny - everything in hip-hop is amplified. Misogyny is a good example of something that is completely amplified in hip-hop. I do think there is more than enough of a balance, though, for fans who are willing to search it out.

There just needs to be a gay rapper. He doesn't have to be flamboyant, just a rapper who identifies as gay - who's better than everybody. Unfortunately hip-hop is so competitive that in order for fringe groups to get in, you gotta be better than whoever's the best.

When Occupy Wall Street happened, I took my money out of Citibank. I already had problems with all the banks - Citibank, Bank of America - but I was kind of just too lazy to take my money out until I saw how Citibank responded to Occupy Wall Street.

As an artist, I have to be a leader of my fans, not, like, follow them. Because if I chose to follow them, you know, they could do it. You know, it's me who's doing it.

If I'm performing with a DJ, it's all on me to draw the energy. I like the camaraderie of a band.

My fans like to be romantic. I feel like I'm creating at least at the same level or even a higher level of creativity than I was at twenty-one. I've gotten better as an artist.

If lyrics sold then truth be told/I'd probably be just as rich and famous as Jay-Z.

I try to count the blessings rather than the problems.

They hope for the Apocalypse like a self-fulfilling prophecy Tell me when do we stop it? Do they ask you your religion before you rent an apartment? Is the answer burning Korans so that we can defend Islamics?

I see that happening with hip hop purists now. Where you have an artist like a Kendrick [Lamar] or a Drake, who are really trying different things emotionally, different things musically, and on a mainstream level. And you have underground hip hop fans dissing it, for the simple fact that it's mainstream - not because what they're doing is whack, or what they're doing is not sincere.

A flower that grow in the ghetto know more about survival than the one from fresh meadows.

It’s very seductive to focus on what you don’t like as opposed to celebrating all that it is that you do.

If you ain't using all the talents God provided you with For the betterment of Man, understand, You ain't nothing but a waste.

I not only wanted to showcase lyrical skills but also continue to drop knowledge on the hiphop community. Im looking to elevate through my music, and through my music I educate.

Artists make art for themselves. Art is an honest expression. Artists who pander to their fans by trying to make music "for" their fans make empty, transparent art. The true fan does not want you to make music for them, they want you to make music for you, because that's the whole reason they fell in love with you in the first place.

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.

Life is a beautiful struggle.

The way I feel about Crunk Feminists. Here you have a bunch of bloggers who are not even quoting any feminists' works who are telling me what I can do better when I've been doing this as my life's work while y'all still in college! What are you talking about? And their criticism was of the idea that we should approach people like Rick Ross and Lil' Wayne with love when they have lyrics that we don't like, as opposed to approaching them with hate. That's their issue: How dare I say I approach Rick Ross with love!

Just because no one can understand how you speak, Don't necessarily mean that what you be sayin is deep.

I ignored your aura but it grabbed me by the hand, like the moon pulled the tide, and the tide pulled the sand.

The most important time in history is - NOW - the present, So count your blessings cause time can't define the essence.

You gotta get back to your essence, Use your gifts and share your presence, Don't count your dollars 'til you count your blessings.

I look at the deejay thing as a tier thing. If I'm not going to compete on that level, I'm just going to do it as a hobby.

When I met you it was magic... We polar opposites, but attracted like we was magnets.

A true artist does not depend on radio for success. A true fan does not let radio determine what they support

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.

I don't care if Rick Ross is 40 years old -- he's a misguided 40-year-old person.

We send young white boys to the Army. We're sending young black boys to the prisons.

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.

I just got a new manager. He's like, "So what do you want to do with the deejay thing?" I'm like, "The deejay thing for me is more my hobby." It's great when you can supplement your income, when you have a weekly or something, it's fun. It's really a hobby, because I don't want it to take away from what I do, which is emceeing.

Jazz is the greatest American art form and our greatest export. We don't pay attention to the youth of jazz, don't stoke the fires creatively for the youth coming up. I feel like jazz musicians became too much of purists - with Donald Byrd doing funk jazz in the '70s.

Life without knowledge is death in disguise.

Do the math: You never settle for less than the whole if you knew the half.

You can have your own opinion, but not your own facts.

I have such respect for the art of deejaying. I hesitate to even call myself a deejay.

Nowadays rap artists coming half-hearted, Commercial like pop, or underground like black markets. Where were you the day hip-hop died? Is it too early to mourn? Is it too late to ride?

What else is stop and frisk? These neighborhoods are unsafe not because there's not enough cops illegally frisking people. They're not safe because of economic conditions. They're not safe because of all types of things in the government that people like Mike Bloomberg and Ray Kelly should be looking to fix instead of randomly searching kids in the hood. If you go to a college campus and you do stop and frisk, you're going to find a lot of drugs there, too.

We commute to computers Spirits stay mute while you eagles spread rumors We survivalists, turned to consumers.

When you shine bright, some won't enjoy the shadow you cast.

We get high on all types of drugs when, all you really need is Love

Consider me the entity within the industry without a history of spitting the epitome of stupidity.