Quote

I try to count the blessings rather than the problems.

Talib Kweli

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Talib Kweli
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 3
Musician
Poet
Rapper
Singer
Songwriter
Brooklyn
New York
Talib Kweli Greene
Blessings
Count
Blessing
Problems
Rather
Problem
Trying

More quotes by Talib Kweli

Image
My musical influence is really from my father. He was a DJ in college. My parents met at New York University. So he listened to, you know, Motown, and he listened to Bob Dylan. He listened to Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones, but he also listened to reggae music. And he collected vinyl.
Talib Kweli
Image
As far as my New York influence, one thing I'm proud of in my career is, I rep Brooklyn, New York all day. But people don't look at my music as New York music. People consider my music underground music.
Talib Kweli
Image
Everybody could write, deejay, rap. Everybody could do it all.
Talib Kweli
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
If lyrics sold then truth be told/I'd probably be just as rich and famous as Jay-Z.
Talib Kweli
Image
Now people won't beat you up if you are gay they might just talk behind your back.
Talib Kweli
Image
A flower that grow in the ghetto know more about survival than the one from fresh meadows.
Talib Kweli
Image
The most important time in history is - NOW - the present, So count your blessings cause time can't define the essence.
Talib Kweli
Image
Skip the religion and politics, head straight to the compassion. Everything else is a distraction.
Talib Kweli
Image
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
Image
Hip-hop is a vehicle.
Talib Kweli
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I think once you're in the public eye, whether you're a boss, a teacher or whatever you do, that you're automatically in the position of role model. You have people looking up to you, so whether you choose to accept it or not is a different question.
Talib Kweli
Image
I will never do a record without some sense of responsibility.
Talib Kweli
Image
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
Image
They ask me what I'm writing for - I'm writing to show you what we're fighting for.
Talib Kweli