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God gave us music, so we play with our words.

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
Rap
Gave
Words
Music
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More quotes by Talib Kweli

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I look at the deejay thing as a tier thing. If I'm not going to compete on that level, I'm just going to do it as a hobby.
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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My rhymes are like shot clocks, interstate cops and blood clots, my point is your flow gets stopped.
Talib Kweli
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I try to count the blessings rather than the problems.
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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Well if somebody's giving me a script, I'll consider it. But it's not something I'm chasing.
Talib Kweli
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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
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You have to know when to be arrogant. You have to when to be humble. You have to know when to be hard and you have to know when to be soft.
Talib Kweli
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Hip hop has always been, for us, for artists who are pure to the craft - any place overseas, whether it's Australia, any place in Asia, Germany, Africa, it becomes something where you can still go and work. Hip hop is an import culture. We're spoiled by it here. It's homegrown.
Talib Kweli
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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
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Why give you the cure when the disease makes money?
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 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 true artist does not depend on radio for success. A true fan does not let radio determine what they support
Talib Kweli
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I don't care if Rick Ross is 40 years old -- he's a misguided 40-year-old person.
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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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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But you have to be creative on how you sell yourself and market yourself.
Talib Kweli
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But Rawkus is integral to what I do, because the cats who started Rawkus are the first ones who really saw my vision, and gave me a platform to get it out there, so I'm definitely totally grateful for that.
Talib Kweli
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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