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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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Talib Kweli
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 3
Musician
Poet
Rapper
Singer
Songwriter
Brooklyn
New York
Talib Kweli Greene
Poor
Likes
Minority
Live
Deserve
Oppressed
Without
Constitution
Criminal
Right
Conditions
Communities
Like
Deals
Neighborhood
People
Says
Illegal
Saying
Search
Community
Treated
Seizure

More quotes by Talib Kweli

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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
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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
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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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It doesn't get any more underground, conscious or indie than Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, but because they got a couple of really big pop hits, actually some of the biggest pop hits that hip-hop has ever seen, people are missing that part of their story. People are not counting that blessing.
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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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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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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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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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
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War is not civilized.
Talib Kweli
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I think its man's nature to go to war and fight.
Talib Kweli
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The most important time in history is - NOW - the present, So count your blessings cause time can't define the essence.
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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My rhymes are like shot clocks, interstate cops and blood clots, my point is your flow gets stopped.
Talib Kweli
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I will never do a record without some sense of responsibility.
Talib Kweli
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If lyrics sold then truth be told/I'd probably be just as rich and famous as Jay-Z.
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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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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Unfortunately hip-hop is so competitive that in order for fringe groups to get in, you gotta be better than whoever's the best. So before Eminem, the idea that there would be a white rapper that anybody would really check for was fantastic or amazing or impossible.
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