A Quote by Jason Reynolds
Hip-hop saved me. It gave me permission to use language in a certain way. It validated my community and my friends. It gave our slang a certain elegance.
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I will say it's great - that Method Man - Cliff Smith - plays a rapper in a laundromat who is working out some lyrics sort of to the rhythm of a washing machine. And something about hip-hop culture and hip-hop is the ability to use current language and slang and reference details of life is very, very strong for me.
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.
I should say that feminism gave me permission to deal with my own emotional life and put it up front in certain ways, or use film as a way to examine, at that time, my own heterosexual experience. Lives of Performers was the beginning of that kind of investigation. But also, the film was influenced by the aesthetics and structures of experimental film as that was taking place at the same time. Hollis Frampton was a big influence on me at that time.
The good Lord gave me something, and he gave me intensity. He gave me a body, and he gave me the work and how hard I worked the body the way that it was.
'Quantum Leap' gave me a huge opportunity as an actor. The nature of the role and it's demands allowed people to perceive me as a versatile actor, and the wide success of the show around the planet gave me a certain notoriety that helped me get other work.
To me, that's the biggest problem with hip-hop today is the fact that everyone believes that all of hip-hop is rap music, and that, when you say "hip-hop," it's synonymous with rap. That when you say "hip-hop," you should be thinking about breakdancing, graffiti art, or MCing - which is the proper name for rap - DJing, beat-boxing, language, fashion, knowledge, trade. You should be thinking about a culture when you say, "hip-hop.".
Because I am white, I feel like certain opportunities were thrown to me through all of the people from the white community who prey on hip-hop culture.
Selling cookies helped me to realize that you needed to have a certain way to communicate with people. You also needed business skills. You knew you needed to sell a certain amount of boxes, so that gave me some business sense.
Richard Hugo taught me that anyone with a desire to write, an ear for language and a bit of imagination could become a writer. He also, in a way, gave me permission to write about northern Montana.
I think we need to sort of broaden our definition of poetry, which maybe it's a good thing that they just gave this Nobel Prize to [Bob] Dylan because blurring the lines of song lyrics and also hip-hop for me is like some of the greatest uses - most innovative uses of language in my lifetime.
I always say snowboarding saved my life. It gave me a reason to focus on the future; it gave me something to be passionate about.
I think hip hop is dead. It's all pop now. If you call it hip hop, then you need to stop. Hip hop was a movement. Hip hop was a culture. Hip hop was a way of life. It's all commercial now.
Perhaps we invented the gods so that we could put the blame on them. They gave us permission to eat flesh. They gave us permission to play with unclean things. It's not our fault, it's theirs. We're just their children.
I asked for strength,
and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for wisdom,
and God gave me problems to learn to solve.
I asked for prosperity,
and God gave me a brain and brawn to work.
I asked for courage,
and God gave me dangers to overcome.
I asked for love,
and God gave me people to help.
I asked for favors,
and God gave me opportunities.
I received nothing I wanted.
I received everything I needed.
Hip-hop, which is my generation's blues, is important to the characters that I write about. They use hip-hop to understand the world through language.
No matter how far you go, if you can't go back to the essence, you're not sayin' nothin'. The essence for me is hip-hop. But the hip-hop community I came up in isn't a loyal community.
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