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Being called a conscious rapper is quite a compliment. It's a great thing to be. But as an artist, my nature is to not be in a box.

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
Quite
Called
Artist
Nature
Great
Rapper
Thing
Compliment
Boxes
Conscious

More quotes by Talib Kweli

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I will never do a record without some sense of responsibility.
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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My rhymes are like shot clocks, interstate cops and blood clots, my point is your flow gets stopped.
Talib Kweli
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Artists make art for themselves. Art is an honest expression. Artists who pander to their fans by trying to make music for their fans make empty, transparent art. The true fan does not want you to make music for them, they want you to make music for you, because that's the whole reason they fell in love with you in the first place.
Talib Kweli
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If lyrics sold then truth be told/I'd probably be just as rich and famous as Jay-Z.
Talib Kweli
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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
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Now people won't beat you up if you are gay they might just talk behind your back.
Talib Kweli
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And you know, art as commerce, doesn't really make too much sense, they don't go together.
Talib Kweli
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I'm at a loss for words. But even my loss is amplified.
Talib Kweli
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I just got a new manager. He's like, So what do you want to do with the deejay thing? I'm like, The deejay thing for me is more my hobby. It's great when you can supplement your income, when you have a weekly or something, it's fun. It's really a hobby, because I don't want it to take away from what I do, which is emceeing.
Talib Kweli
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A flower that grow in the ghetto know more about survival than the one from fresh meadows.
Talib Kweli
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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
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But there's so many things in life like women, like children, like God and family that transcends the world of hip-hop.
Talib Kweli
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Hip-hop isn't as complex as a woman is.
Talib Kweli
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Hip-hop is a vehicle.
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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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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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
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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
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Even an independent label is looking for a hit, they're not looking for a record that's not gonna do well.
Talib Kweli