Quote

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
Everybody
York
Community
City
Feel
Parents
Feels
Influence
Like
Grew
Cities
Brooklyn
Special
Influences
Parent
Biggest

More quotes by 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.
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But you have to be creative on how you sell yourself and market yourself.
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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.
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Let me finish my music, and let me present it the way I want to present it. And then share it, put it online, do whatever you want to do after that.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Who you? Your name smaller than fine grains in couscous It's the highest calibre, your calibre is deuce deuce
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By the time you get into other kinds of music - R&B, country, or whatever - it becomes something that's romantic. It becomes something unattainable. Never-ending undying love. And in hip hop, we're still taking direct inspiration.
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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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A flower that grow in the ghetto know more about survival than the one from fresh meadows.
Talib Kweli
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I think hip hop is a dance music that's rebellious by nature.
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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Everybody could write, deejay, rap. Everybody could do it all.
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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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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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
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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