A Quote by John Legend

I always felt that rap didn't cause crime; it just reflected it. — © John Legend
I always felt that rap didn't cause crime; it just reflected it.
I'm just basically spillin' out my emotions to the world. 'Cause rap is about emotion. And I want you to feel what I'm feelin', 'cause that's what it's all about.
Listen, if you a comedian, and you try to jump in the rap lane, it's not gonna work out the way you think it's gonna work out. Just cause you got 4 million followers, 5 million followers, them people follow you 'cause you a comedian. So, once you try to rap they are not going to take you serious.
When I was on the 'Knock Madness' tour, I was just thinking about life; I started questioning God. I was praying a lot. I was just really emotional. I was going through a break up situation as well. And I just felt like I needed to be home. I was over the rap thing. I just felt like I wasn't getting the respect and credit that I deserve.
Alcohol didn't cause the high crime rates of the '20s and '30s, Prohibition did. And drugs do not cause today's alarming crime rates, but drug prohibition does.
Rap always has that undertone of rebellion and I just wanted to explore it. I felt there was a rebel within me who was against everything - the education system and teachers, and even my parents.
Many writers claim that nearly all crime is caused by economic conditions, or in other words that poverty is practically the whole cause of crime. Endless statistics have been gathered on this subject which seem to show conclusively that property crimes are largely the result of the unequal distribution of wealth. But crime of any class cannot be safely ascribed to a single cause. Life is too complex, heredity is too variant and imperfect, too many separate things contribute to human behavior, to make it possible to trace all actions to a single cause.
The best crime stories are always about the crime and its consequences - you know, 'Crime And Punishment' is the classic. Where you have the crime, and its consequences are the story, but considering the crime and the consequences makes you think about the society in which the crime takes place, if you see what I mean.
You gotta do a lot more than rap. Rap is not just rap. If you don't have an image, you're not capturing nobody's attention.
Nas always been my favorite rapper, but 50 Cent, he changed my way of thinking about music 'cause he was so detailed in his music, I knew that wasn't lying. I never felt Tupac that way; I never felt Biggie that way. I love Nas music, but I never felt and believed like, 'This is for real.' 'Cause I grew up that gangsta lifestyle.
I think that it gave me a really strong feeling of my life force and a confidence in myself. I felt like I was a man. Before that point for some reason, I always felt I was a boy (laughter). In fact, they called me the baby on the ship 'cause I was the youngest guy on the ship. But I always felt that way.
television and radio violence was considered by most experts of minimal importance as a contributory cause of youthful killing. ... there were always enough experts to assure the public that crime and violence had nothing to do with crime and violence.
Quality-of-life policing is based on probable cause - an officer has witnessed a crime personally or has a witness to the crime.
I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.
I feel like when it comes to rap - like, real rap music - and knowing the pioneers of rap, I feel like there's no competition for me in the NBA. Other guys can rap, but they're not as invested or as deep into actual music as I am and always have been. I think that might be what the difference is. I'm more wanting to be an artist.
I had written rap songs in the early '90s and even did a couple homemade rap songs with my brother in like '88 or '89, but it was just like... I don't even know how to say it. Just plain rap. I was just rapping about whatever, there was no real style or direction, it was just semi-braggadocious rhymes that probably imitated 100 other rappers.
Having had been not so well traveled as a kid, as most teenagers aren't, I always thought, "Okay I'm going to focus my energy on rap and the rap game, because that's how I'm going to be able to pay rent and pay off my school loans." But seeing the reaction with this whole gay rap situation has made me not want to play into it at all anymore and just make whatever.
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