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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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Talib Kweli
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 3
Musician
Poet
Rapper
Singer
Songwriter
Brooklyn
New York
Talib Kweli Greene
Special
Influences
Parent
Biggest
Everybody
York
Community
City
Feel
Parents
Feels
Influence
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Grew
Cities
Brooklyn
More quotes by Talib Kweli
Ain't nobody making music to not be heard and the easiest way to be heard is to be on the radio, but you should never compromise who you are, your values or your morals.
Talib Kweli
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
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
I tour whether I have album out or not. I tour more than any other hip-hop artist.
Talib Kweli
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
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
Everybody could write, deejay, rap. Everybody could do it all.
Talib Kweli
I support the idea that artists have to make a stand. I'm with that - you're putting the discussion on the table and you're letting people know. You're being brave as an artist and responsible to the community.
Talib Kweli
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
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
I was always rhyming and doing it for the love before I found out I was gonna have children and when I found out, doing it for the love wasn't enough.
Talib Kweli
Truthfully I wanna rhyme like common senseNext best thing I do a record with common sense
Talib Kweli
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
I think hip hop is a dance music that's rebellious by nature.
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
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
Love is blind, you just see bright light
Talib Kweli
The materialism, the brashness, the misogyny - everything in hip-hop is amplified. Misogyny is a good example of something that is completely amplified in hip-hop. I do think there is more than enough of a balance, though, for fans who are willing to search it out.
Talib Kweli
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
Why give you the cure when the disease makes money?
Talib Kweli