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" I don't have to work on it. I'm naturally a writer. The rapping and writing, they can go hand-in-hand - but rapping is an art that you have to practice and master, so I worked at it for a long time. "

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" I do this for the sake of myself. It's a selfish process. I don't really have any expectations from anyone for your comments or your reviews or your previews. "

Lupe Fiasco

Expectations

Myself

Selfish

" It definitely wasn't like, 'Hey, I'm going to steal that, and nobody's going to know.' The original 'T.R.O.Y.' came out in 1992, and it was like a 20th anniversary kind of thing. All of those intentions were there for it to be resurrecting a classic for a new generation. I tried to honor it. "

" You can't control it once you turn it into the label, so there's the expectation that it'll leak a week before the album comes out. That's the world we live in. "

" I never want to be an artistic bully, and put myself above anyone else... or be more prestigious than anyone else. You like what you like, and you have to take that as you want it. "

Lupe Fiasco

Want

Myself

" I think that American presidents, that position in itself, as well as American foreign policy, it has terrorism in it. CIA agents going to overthrow certain governments - they're using terrorist tactics. They're not going in there like, 'Hey, you wanna have some cake?' "

" I have so many miles and I've been flying for so long that every time I fly, it's first class. It's one of those things that, if I needed to jump on a plane, and fly to Spain tomorrow, I know I could get it done. Just like that. "

" I definitely want to work with Thom Yorke. I want to work with Damien Marley; there's a few international artists I wouldn't mind working with - like Massacre Children would be ill, and I still have an affinity for the U.K. hip hop scene. "

" It's a massive undertaking putting an album together... It's not light weight at all. "

" I find it somewhat liberating to jump, to dive into things that are the opposite of me. "

Lupe Fiasco

Dive

Jump

" All the big revolutions, whether it's the Industrial Revolution, the Arab Spring, those changes happened by economic and social shifts brought about by the people's voices, and those things weren't voted for. Most of our changes today are brought about through technology, not by voting. "

" I have yet to see someone attack Obama over his report card. A lot of people I talk to from both sides of the fence are like, 'Well, what about this economy? What about these incidents?' There are still no answers except time, but time is the answer for everything. "

" People say, 'If you don't vote, then you don't have a right to say anything. But nine times outta 10, I pay more taxes than they do - so even if I don't vote, I still have the right to speak out. "

" Sometimes I do feel hopeless when I look out and scream out through my music, and I scream out through these interviews, and I scream out to people to kind of get their attention back on the things that are meaningful. There's people dying on the streets of Chicago - young people, young men and women who are losing their lives. "

" My whole team, it wasn't about putting the album out, it was about getting off the record company and going independent or going to another label. To the point we were like, 'Listen, just take 'Lasers.' You can have whatever percentage off the next ten records I do for the rest of my life. I just do not want to be here anymore.' "

" The party lines don't change, that's what makes them a party and you'd be a fool to think that just because there's a black man in there it's not gonna change the real foundation of the system. Especially when you look at his largest contributor to his campaign, AIG, one of the culprits in the economic meltdown itself. "

" Some stuff I don't even put out. I'll just be home, happy, creating something for myself, and then ball it up and throw it in the trash. It's less about trying to prove something or get on somebody's list or make a fan happy or make a hater mad or convert a non-believer. That's not the case for me anymore. "

" I always saw two sides of life. I saw the dudes who would be the gangsta, big-time guys on the block, but would also be dedicated fathers. It was kind of weird to see that dual story that everybody has. "

" I have an understanding of Queen and the way Freddie Mercury did his harmonies. I know what tablas sound like, because my father played a lot of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. "

" Da Pak was a group out of Chicago. It was a put-together group. We actually met for the first time at this showcase. They were like 'Yo, you should do a song together.' So we did. It just so happened that the name of the song was 'Wolf Pak.' They said, 'Y'all should be a group called Da Pak, and here's a record deal.' "

" You expect certain things. You build up in your mind how it's supposed to go down. When you get a record deal, you think you're supposed to get X, Y, and Z. It doesn't happen like that. You're like 'Oh, this isn't as exciting as I thought it was going to be.' "

" Some people are the greatest people on Earth with good hearts and will get in the studio and make the most negative music in the world for the sake of success. That's what the music business does to you. That's what capitalism does to you. "

" When you start creating opinion, and you start creating difference of opinion, you're doing something. People are actually sitting down and critiquing. A lot of the stuff people hate, they really don't. They only look at the outer shell. They don't really get into it. "

" Chief Keef scares me. Not him specifically, but just the culture that he represents. "

" Obama came in and gave $700 billion to the bankers off the top as opposed to giving $700 billion to the poor. "

" I just downloaded '1984' for my iPod, but I've read that before. It just hearkens back to the 'romance' of my high-school days. I really liked the space I was in when I was reading it. "

" I was born Muslim, but for a large part of my life, I wasn't necessarily raised Muslim. My father always kept everything around us, from Western philosophy to Eastern philosophy. "

" This game wears on you. It tears you down. It's perpetual motion for some people who've achieved a level of independence, like Madonna and Jay-Z - they don't need to do music anymore. But there's people who need it. And in that need, that's when it's tough and it tears you to pieces. "

" With 'Hip-Hop Saved My Life,' I attempted to make 'Kick, Push,' but for rappers. To give a real basic play-by-play of the life of a rapper before he makes it - if he ever makes it, because you can get stuck in that and be trying to make it for the rest of your life. "

" We've done shows - we'll be in Dublin, and it will be nonstop pandemonium to the point where you think the crowd is going to implode, because they're making so much noise and they're so excited. "

" I don't hate the music, but I hate the process. When I look at it, I don't see song titles and artwork, I see the fight - I see the emotions, the blood, sweat and tears. There are a couple of songs on there that I love; but 'Lasers' is a little bit of what you love, a little bit of what you like, and a lot of what you had to do. "