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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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Talib Kweli
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 3
Musician
Poet
Rapper
Singer
Songwriter
Brooklyn
New York
Talib Kweli Greene
Doesn
Activism
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Empowerment
Empowering
Relevant
Type
Deal
Deals
Struggle
Empower
More quotes by Talib Kweli
The problem with our role is Americans live in a world of illusion.
Talib Kweli
But you have to be creative on how you sell yourself and market yourself.
Talib Kweli
I'm not an artist that has a big, huge radio record that's going to be on BET. I'm not, at this point, gunning for like, Oh, I'm gonna kill them in the first week. But as people slowly discover the album they realize it's better than a lot of what they've been listening to all year.
Talib Kweli
There are staples to my show. I have to be conscious about switching things up because I know people who saw me last year will say, 'He did that last time.' But if certain things work, they work.
Talib Kweli
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
Hip-hop is a vehicle.
Talib Kweli
With Prisoner of Conscience, the focus was - I've worked with Madlib, High Tech, Kanye West, J Dilla. I feel like I've worked with some of the greatest of all time. That's been overlooked. That's been overshadowed by the weight of the lyrics.
Talib Kweli
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
I listened to a mind joint, and I wanted to do my own version of it, and what you hear on my mixtape is my take on what the whole CD sounds like.
Talib Kweli
I met Mos Def around that time but I didn't hook up with him until I was about 17 or 18.
Talib Kweli
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
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
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
Harry Belafonte hit me to the Dream Defenders and I liked what they were about. When I asked them how I could help their movement, they said, You can help by coming down here you can tweet.
Talib Kweli
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
When I met you it was magic... We polar opposites, but attracted like we was magnets.
Talib Kweli
I have enough rhythm to blend at this point. I have enough rhythm to blend one song into another. But man, I have such respect for the art of deejaying. I hesitate to even call myself a deejay.
Talib Kweli
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
Fortunately, artists can live off their works, if you're creative at how you do it. If you just depend on the videos and the radio, you're at a loss.
Talib Kweli
You can have your own opinion, but not your own facts.
Talib Kweli
