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Who you? Your name smaller than fine grains in couscous It's the highest calibre, your calibre is deuce deuce

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
Fine
Name
Calibre
Names
Deuce
Deuces
Grains
Smaller
Grain
Highest

More quotes by Talib Kweli

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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
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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
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God gave us music, so we play with our words.
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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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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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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When I look at the arc of my career, my focus is on lyricism, right? I own that.
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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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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Once you're signed to a label you compromise.
Talib Kweli
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I think its man's nature to go to war and fight.
Talib Kweli
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I have such respect for the art of deejaying. I hesitate to even call myself a deejay.
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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Young kids should be doing music that has shock value. They'll grow out of it.
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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Hip-hop isn't as complex as a woman is.
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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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
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I have a luxury of people coming to see me whether I play for the crowd or not. I don't take that lightly.
Talib Kweli
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I like collaboration because, first of all, I'm good at writing lyrics. I don't know how to make beats. I don't play instruments. I'm not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it's still a collaboration.
Talib Kweli