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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

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Talib Kweli
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 3
Musician
Poet
Rapper
Singer
Songwriter
Brooklyn
New York
Talib Kweli Greene
Wells
Well
Label
Even
Labels
Gonna
Independent
Record
Records
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More quotes by 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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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
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Love is blind, you just see bright light
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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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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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
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I ignored your aura but it grabbed me by the hand, like the moon pulled the tide, and the tide pulled the sand.
Talib Kweli
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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
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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
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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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Skip the religion and politics, head straight to the compassion. Everything else is a distraction.
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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It’s very seductive to focus on what you don’t like as opposed to celebrating all that it is that you do.
Talib Kweli
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I think people are into me because of my music choices and my musicality.
Talib Kweli
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You can have your own opinion, but not your own facts.
Talib Kweli
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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
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I'm not looking to set a standard... but, I believe I have offered a challenge to others with my work.
Talib Kweli
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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
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If you ain't using all the talents God provided you with For the betterment of Man, understand, You ain't nothing but a waste.
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