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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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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
Create
Grown
Faking
Rather
Obligation
Sale
Use
Fantasy
Discussing
Reality
Sake
Controversy
Young
Created
Topics
Hard
Nobody
Medium
Time
Wasn
Mediums
People
Days
Discussion

More quotes by Chuck D

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As a late teenager, the punk movement pushed me further. In particular, the Clash, which happened to leak through the time of disco, showed me that there was this cross-cultural sound that could cut across genres and audiences. Like punk was to disco, rap music was a rebellion against R&B, which had adopted disco and made it worse.
Chuck D
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As black people we were out to further our equality. I don't pay attention to the controversial connotations put on by media and the undermining labels they place on us. We pay attention to what our community situation is and what we need.
Chuck D
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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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DJ culture always made us aware that the best records were going to come from the small shops
Chuck D
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Americans are not sharp. You can be sharp in your own area, I guess, but in this world you gotta be conscious of everybody else in the world too. You just can't be drunken with constitution and hear, okay we're gonna do this and then you hear well, we're gonna go kill this guy 'cause he's a terrorist and you keep gettin' it.
Chuck D
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Hip-hop is a part of rock & roll because it comes from DJ culture. DJ culture is the embodiment of all genres and all recorded music, if you actually pay attention to it.
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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Don't anoint me when you can anoint yourself.
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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To live a life you love, you must Love the life you live.
Chuck D
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Reflect each day on all you have to be grateful for and you will receive more to be grateful for.
Chuck D
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I'm recording freely, and if I make a song, I release it immediately, so I'm more likely to believe in one song at a time as opposed to albums.
Chuck D
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If I can't change the people around me, I change the people around me.
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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Maybe we need to look upon technologies and social networks as things that come out of us, not things that lead us. We can be on top of these things instead of them bein' on top of us as human beings.
Chuck D
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I never live alone, I never walk alone. My posse's always ready And they're waitin' in my zone.
Chuck D
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What made me want to become a recording artist I was the first artist that was repeatedly asked by a label to record with them. That label was Def Jam Records.
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 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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No matter what the name, we're all the same pieces in one big chess game.
Chuck D