A Quote by Jamila Woods

When I started writing poetry, it was always in very hip-hop influenced spaces: Someone would teach a Nas song side-by-side with a Gwendolyn Brooks poem, and we'd talk about the connections between those things.

Jamila Woods

Quote Topics

About Always Between Brooks Connections Hip Hip-Hop Hop Influenced Poem Poetry Side Someone Song Spaces Started Talk Teach Things Those Very Would Writing Writing Poetry

Quote Author

Jamila Woods
American - Musician

I would like to encourage hip hop artists to invite those of us who are in the queer spaces in, so we can have those conversations. I love hip hop. If you bring me in the studio, I know how to act. And we can talk about what's not cool because, clearly, there's still homophobia that penetrates in all these areas.

Karamo Brown

I was reading Carl Sandburg and Gwendolyn Brooks, and I'm still very, very deeply moved by Gwendolyn Brooks's life and her work.

Sandra Cisneros

There needs to be structures in place to do something about misrepresentation about hip hop. When awards are given out and the media talk about hip hop, they're confused because they haven't done their homework on it so you have a case where there's an award for the most pop song in the world and it's called 'hip hop'.

Nas

I'd like to see people pay attention to the science of hip hop. The knowledge part, the political side of what hip hop could do, or where hip hop is gonna go. I always say it's gonna become universal as we become a galactic union.

Afrika Bambaataa

When I became older and started to become more in tune with my political leanings, there was a disconnect between the feminist in me and the hip hop side of me, and I don't know if, in some way, those influences are also present in Tupac's work.

Zoe Buckman

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.

Talib Kweli

We can teach about hip-hop history, we can teach about legends, hip-hop theory. It's been around so long that text books can be written about it. This is a perfect time to capitalize on and get kids excited about music education.

Kanye West

This is the thing about hip-hop music and where people get it most misconstrued: It's all hip-hop. You can't say that just what I do is hip-hop, because hip-hop is all energies. James Brown can get on the track and mumble all day. But guess what? You felt his soul on those records.

Kendrick Lamar

Everyone uses grime as a footstool, but imagine Biggie Smalls started doing hip hop, and it started going well, and then he started making RnB: there would be no hip hop!

Big Narstie

One does not read a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks with hopes that it will grant him a career in engineering; he does so because poetry helps him see something in the world that he might not have seen before.

Clint Smith

Hip-hop started with street poets with great lyrical skills, and that's what hip-hop has always been about for me.

Gza

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.

Talib Kweli

It's like a paradox. For one side, being popularized rap got better and the other side of it got worse. It's very pop and it's very different now. When you make it as pop and as soft as it is, it lacks its integrity. It lacks its accountability. It lacks a lot of other things that came from that dangerous time in hip hop.

Ice T

I think Hip Hop and Gospel are such strong distinct cultures that have problems, unspoken problems obviously, but problems with one another. On the hip hop side, it's the problems of "awe man I don't like the suits and ties," and on the Gospel side it's " awe man they need to pull their pants up." I just think those are minor, really small issues that we just need to get over and learn to help each other. We're all on the same , and in the same boat.

Lecrae

I was reading Emily Dickinson and Edwin Arlington Robinson, but these weren't the poets that influenced me. I think Gwendolyn Brooks influenced me because she wrote about Chicago, and she wrote about poor people. And she influenced me in my life by giving me a blurb. I would see her in action, and she listened to every single person. She didn't say, "Oh, I'm tired. I gotta go." She was there, and present, with every single person. She's one of the great teachers.

Sandra Cisneros

There are many writers who have influenced me and who I enjoy reading, but Lucille Clifton and Gwendolyn Brooks are at the top of the list.