Quote

So I just had to step up how I was doing it and the moment that I stepped up and the moment I focused all my energy on that is when things started to happen. So there's a direct relationship between my inspiration and my output.

Talib Kweli

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Talib Kweli
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 3
Musician
Poet
Rapper
Singer
Songwriter
Brooklyn
New York
Talib Kweli Greene
Things
Relationship
Inspiration
Started
Output
Happen
Stepped
Moment
Focused
Energy
Step
Moments
Direct
Happens
Steps

More quotes by Talib Kweli

Image
If you go to a college campus and you do stop and frisk, you're going to find a lot of drugs there too.
Talib Kweli
Image
I was always rhyming and doing it for the love before I found out I was gonna have children and when I found out, doing it for the love wasn't enough.
Talib Kweli
Image
Art Imitates life, of course, is that phrase by Oscar Wilde. I called that song Art Imitates Life because Oh No was in the studio and he actually came up with that hook. When I was trying to figure out a name for the record, it just kind of made sense.
Talib Kweli
Image
Truthfully I wanna rhyme like common senseNext best thing I do a record with common sense
Talib Kweli
Image
They ask me what I'm writing for - I'm writing to show you what we're fighting for.
Talib Kweli
Image
Skip the religion and politics, head straight to the compassion. Everything else is a distraction.
Talib Kweli
Image
As far as being on a major label, some labels get it and get what they have to do, and some labels don't. I don't think the label I'm on necessarily gets it, but I think over time they're gonna have to.
Talib Kweli
Image
My musical influence is really from my father. He was a DJ in college. My parents met at New York University. So he listened to, you know, Motown, and he listened to Bob Dylan. He listened to Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones, but he also listened to reggae music. And he collected vinyl.
Talib Kweli
Image
My parents are my biggest influences. My parents and my city. Brooklyn, New York, New York City, the community I grew up. I don't feel like I'm special in that. I feel like that's everybody.
Talib Kweli
Image
You know, there's a lot of activism that doesn't deal with empowerment, and you have to empower yourself in order to be relevant to any type of struggle.
Talib Kweli
Image
There just needs to be a gay rapper who's better than everybody. That's when that question will no longer be able to be asked.
Talib Kweli
Image
To be honest, that whole exchange with Crunk Feminist actually made me write the song because I realize there's a lot of young women out there so hurt by the misogynistic images in hip-hop they paint it with such a broad brush stroke that they think anybody that defends hip-hop is defending misogyny.
Talib Kweli
Image
By the time you get into other kinds of music - R&B, country, or whatever - it becomes something that's romantic. It becomes something unattainable. Never-ending undying love. And in hip hop, we're still taking direct inspiration.
Talib Kweli
Image
Everybody could write, deejay, rap. Everybody could do it all.
Talib Kweli
Image
Jazz is the greatest American art form and our greatest export. We don't pay attention to the youth of jazz, don't stoke the fires creatively for the youth coming up. I feel like jazz musicians became too much of purists - with Donald Byrd doing funk jazz in the '70s.
Talib Kweli
Image
My fans like to be romantic. I feel like I'm creating at least at the same level or even a higher level of creativity than I was at twenty-one. I've gotten better as an artist.
Talib Kweli
Image
I met Mos Def around that time but I didn't hook up with him until I was about 17 or 18.
Talib Kweli
Image
I don't care if Rick Ross is 40 years old -- he's a misguided 40-year-old person.
Talib Kweli
Image
Even an independent label is looking for a hit, they're not looking for a record that's not gonna do well.
Talib Kweli
Image
It doesn't get any more underground, conscious or indie than Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, but because they got a couple of really big pop hits, actually some of the biggest pop hits that hip-hop has ever seen, people are missing that part of their story. People are not counting that blessing.
Talib Kweli