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I'm at a loss for words. But even my loss is amplified.

Talib Kweli

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Talib Kweli
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 3
Musician
Poet
Rapper
Singer
Songwriter
Brooklyn
New York
Talib Kweli Greene
Amplified
Loss
Words
Even

More quotes by Talib Kweli

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The beautiful thing about hip-hop is it's like an audio collage. You can take any form of music and do it in a hip-hop way and it'll be a hip-hop song. That's the only music you can do that with.
Talib Kweli
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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
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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
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Music is not an exact science so depending on the time and the mode and the energy when we do it that will determine what happens with it.
Talib Kweli
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I met Mos Def around that time but I didn't hook up with him until I was about 17 or 18.
Talib Kweli
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I will never do a record without some sense of responsibility.
Talib Kweli
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When I look at the arc of my career, my focus is on lyricism, right? I own that.
Talib Kweli
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If I focus on being an activist and my job is to be a rapper, I'm not going to be as good of a rapper. I need to focus on hip-hop and focus on making the music, so that when the activists come to me and they need my voice to create a platform, then I've got enough people listening to me. Not because I'm conscious, but because I'm dope.
Talib Kweli
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They hope for the Apocalypse like a self-fulfilling prophecy Tell me when do we stop it? Do they ask you your religion before you rent an apartment? Is the answer burning Korans so that we can defend Islamics?
Talib Kweli
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You can have your own opinion, but not your own facts.
Talib Kweli
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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
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When I met you it was magic... We polar opposites, but attracted like we was magnets.
Talib Kweli
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I remember looking back on a photo of me... wearing a suit that was, like, two sizes too big for me. I think a lot of guys don't know what fits.
Talib Kweli
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No one likes to be treated like people in minority communities. What it's saying is that because you're poor, because you live in a neighborhood that deals with oppressed conditions, you deserve to be treated like a criminal. In our Constitution it says you have the right to live without illegal search and seizure.
Talib Kweli
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When you have a voice and a platform and you know better, it becomes your moral obligation to support that community. And by extension, you're supporting your family.
Talib Kweli
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Hip-hop is a vehicle.
Talib Kweli
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Young kids should be doing music that has shock value. They'll grow out of it.
Talib Kweli
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Artists look at the environment, and the best artists correctly diagnose the problem. I'm not saying artists can't be leaders, but that's not the job of art, to lead. Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte - there are artists all through history who have become leaders, but that was already in them, nothing to do with their art.
Talib Kweli
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I was kind of just too lazy to take my money out of the bank until I saw how Citi Bank responded to Occupy Wall Street.
Talib Kweli
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Unfortunately hip-hop is so competitive that in order for fringe groups to get in, you gotta be better than whoever's the best. So before Eminem, the idea that there would be a white rapper that anybody would really check for was fantastic or amazing or impossible.
Talib Kweli