Quote

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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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
Easy
Throughout
Take
Basically
Going
Mountain
Way
Negative
Like
Understood
People
Positive
Sliding
Times
Hill
Lives
Hills

More quotes by Chuck D

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All I want is peace and love on this planet. Ain't that how God planned it?
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Public Enemy is the security of the hip-hop party.
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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.
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A visit to the hood through a record, or through a video, or through a film, is a lot safer than actually visiting the people in real life. It became a business model. It became a revenue engine that, you know, you can get to the hood without ever going there.
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Why would twenty-six-year-old teenagers care about political ramifications if their backs are not up against the wall? But if their backs are against the wall they may be plucked to fight in Iraq, and all of sudden they become politicized real quick.
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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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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.
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If you go get a passport, it might encourage you to at least consider the world around you.
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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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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We didn't invent music, so it's been here for a reason, and it has powers for a reason. So we should pay attention to it, because we might not know the clear answers but we should at least acknowledge that it is something there. To not be playin around with it.
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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DJ culture always made us aware that the best records were going to come from the small shops
Chuck D
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If you want to be an artist, truly try to write what you believe, and if you write when you don't believe then you should try to become an actor.
Chuck D
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I want to always move forward with everything I am doing. So, I do the radio show, speak at universities and other social institutions all around the world, appear on TV, and continue to create music all in the hope to keep the struggle alive.
Chuck D
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I'm not a firm believer of mo' money mo' problems - I think that's stupid. I think it's that problems are already there that can be exacerbated by more things you don't understand.
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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Share and enjoy the fruits of this planet.
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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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