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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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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
Write
Become
Writing
Trying
Believe
Truly
Actor
Actors
Artist

More quotes by Chuck D

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Public Enemy is the security of the hip-hop party.
Chuck D
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The powers that be are trying to meld, shape, and corral the culture of hip-hop into another speaking voice for the government.
Chuck D
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I'm envious of the way that electronic dance music has organised itself. It has been able to understand what it ain't rather than what it is. And I think that slipped away from hip-hop as soon as the DJs lost the majority of the say so in the direction of the music.
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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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.
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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Knowledge, wisdom, and understanding don't come out of the microwave. You got to keep moving forward because the evil doesn't sleep.
Chuck D
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Rap comes from the humble beginnings of rebelling against the status quo. Now, rappers have become the status quo themselves. You can't rebel against the Queen and then become the Queen yourself. I attribute much of the blame to testosterone-male dominance and patriarchy.
Chuck D
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You're always going to sound like yourself, but you can make really strong attempts to keep some similarities, but move away from what you did before for popularity's sake.
Chuck D
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Corporations have steered the industry into what it wants, and a lot of times they will make artists record what it wants or to make songs talk to who they want to talk to. But sometimes the heart and the head have to be able to talk and deal with a situation that's evident.
Chuck D
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Find like-minded people and try not to be individualized to the point where you try to fight it all and think about it all on your own.
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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Bigger doesn't mean better unless you really understand what bigger is.
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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I encourage more blacks and people of color to get a passport. That's one way to help put people on an equal platform.
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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Oh, America is slipping away from the rest of the consciousness of the planet - slipping away.
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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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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The best American is one who considers themselves as a citizen of the world.
Chuck D