Quote

Being called Black in America is the struggle to keep us moving and breathing over bloody water. Being a Nig**r or [Ni**a] without the context of history is like drowning in bloody water, dragging down those yet knowing to swim.

Chuck D

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Chuck D
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: August 1
Composer
Journalist
Musician
Radio Personality
Rapper
Record Producer
Singer
Television Producer
Writer
New York City
New York
Carlton Douglas Ridenhour
Like
Knowing
Dragging
Water
Drowning
Moving
Bloody
History
Context
Black
Swim
Keep
Breathing
America
Struggle
Without
Called

More quotes by Chuck D

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When somebody greedily comes along and thinks that they gonna snatch everything, and you have so many people that have not, the passion that drives me is trying to make them understand that they have to share. So, my art reflects that the whole reason I do what I do reflects that.
Chuck D
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You know, it's nothin' quick overnight. If anything happens to you quick, you need to start questioning that. You know, you hear young people go, aw, I'm gonna blow up. You gonna blow up but with a controlled explosion. Don't just blow up all over the place.
Chuck D
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Try to find like-minded people. Don't choose your friends based on the outside, choose your friends based on your similar views or something that you can learn from.
Chuck D
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In the past, people were going to record stores and buying albums or CDs. And the label was exposing their artist as much as possible and maybe getting them picked up by a major. Now I tell people to cut a good tune and have it up in the marketplace the next day. You better be prepared to give it away, and people will come pay to see you.
Chuck D
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Where else can you go with respect to the work, lyrics, and message of the music? If you are past high school age, you can get by with saying very little the first or second time around. However, after a while you know you are going to have to say something beyond high school stuff.
Chuck D
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You can actually take your pain and processes it into some kind of form of art. So I mean, I've easily always been able to do that, but also I've always been able to give myself perspective - or, you know, older people always give you perspective.
Chuck D
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I think traveling the world has helped to keep Public Enemy alive. We've never solely depended on the United States.
Chuck D
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Don't anoint me when you can anoint yourself.
Chuck D
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Young people are having a hard time with what's reality and what's fantasy these days...We created discussion. It wasn't to create controversy for sale's sake, but rather it was my obligation to use the medium for discussion. Nobody's discussing the grown-up topics they are faking and fronting.
Chuck D
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Music and art and culture is escapism, and escapism sometimes is healthy for people to get away from reality. The problem is when they stay there.
Chuck D
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The truth has no form, you know. It's not like walking around trying to actually ask for favors and to be acknowledged, it is what it is.
Chuck D
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Black folks are judged by quantity, not quality. It's a decimal point or figure. How different is that from slavery? There's no moral code, it's just about successful business for America.
Chuck D
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Being positive is like going up a mountain. Being negative is like sliding down a hill. A lot of times, people want to take the easy way out, because it's basically what they've understood throughout their lives.
Chuck D
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Getting on the road and driving along a road at night, or even in the daytime and seeing the oceans or whatever, is always liberating.
Chuck D
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Minds are the real estate of the 21st century.
Chuck D
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No matter what the name, we're all the same pieces in one big chess game.
Chuck D
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Every time something tries to create respect with a machine it crumbles!
Chuck D
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I always tell people that I was fortunate I was able to come in with a group of men. We didn't come into the game with a group of boys. We were young then. So your cats keep you in check.
Chuck D
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The biggest thing that has happened to hip-hop is the clinging on to the corporation as the all-mighty hub of the music.
Chuck D
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When culture is created in boardrooms with a panel of six or seven strategists for the masses to follow, to me that is no different than an aristocracy. It's not created from the people in the middle of the streets, so to speak. It is created from a petri dish for the sake of making money, and it is undermining the longevity of the culture.
Chuck D