Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
I listened to a mind joint, and I wanted to do my own version of it, and what you hear on my mixtape is my take on what the whole CD sounds like.
Talib Kweli
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Talib Kweli
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 3
Musician
Poet
Rapper
Singer
Songwriter
Brooklyn
New York
Talib Kweli Greene
Sound
Wanted
Joint
Take
Joints
Whole
Listened
Mind
Version
Like
Versions
Sounds
Hear
More quotes by Talib Kweli
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
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
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
Life is a beautiful struggle.
Talib Kweli
I remember looking back on a photo of me... wearing a suit that was, like, two sizes too big for me. I think a lot of guys don't know what fits.
Talib Kweli
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
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
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
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
When I look at the arc of my career, my focus is on lyricism, right? I own that.
Talib Kweli
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
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
My fans like to be romantic. I feel like I'm creating at least at the same level or even a higher level of creativity than I was at twenty-one. I've gotten better as an artist.
Talib Kweli
Hip-hop isn't as complex as a woman is.
Talib Kweli
I look at the deejay thing as something - I'm good at it because I have my own music. I have enough rhythm to blend at this point.
Talib Kweli
If you go to a college campus and you do stop and frisk, you're going to find a lot of drugs there too.
Talib Kweli
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.
Talib Kweli
I try to count the blessings rather than the problems.
Talib Kweli
My rhymes are like shot clocks, interstate cops and blood clots, my point is your flow gets stopped.
Talib Kweli
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