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" I started rapping because I wanted people to hear what I have to say, I want as many people to hear me as possible, and I do everything in my power to make that pop. "
Talib Kweli
Me
Want
Say
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" The way I see it, if people truly love my music, they will support me in some way down the road. "
Talib Kweli
Love
Me
Music
" My fondest memories were watching the Beastie Boys get prepped to come on stage. They had a lot of antics and they play a lot of basketball... then they were giving out cameras to the crowd, and performing from the bleachers. The most important thing I learned was that you control your crowd, not the other way around. "
Talib Kweli
Memories
Giving
Control
" But it becomes disrespectful when the artist's process is not respected. "
Talib Kweli
Becomes
Artist
Process
" Things are fluid in this world, and if you don't remain fluid, you get lost in the sauce. "
Talib Kweli
Sauce
Things
World
" I'm not an artist that has a big, huge radio record that's going to be on BET. "
Talib Kweli
Big
Bet
Record
" A lot of these people, these program directors, just like anybody else in the world, even though they're supposed to be leaders in the world, they're followers. They follow what they think someone else is doing, instead of trying to blaze a trail. "
Talib Kweli
Doing
Trying
People
" If you look at my career, doing albums with Norah Jones, Justin Timberlake, Gucci Mane and Lil Wayne or KRS-One and Jean Grae, I can't be pigeonholed. "
Talib Kweli
You
Career
Albums
" I met Mos Def around that time but I didn't hook up with him until I was about 17 or 18. "
Talib Kweli
Until
Hook
Him
" You have to know when to be arrogant. You have to when to be humble. You have to know when to be hard and you have to know when to be soft. "
Talib Kweli
Hard
You
Know
" 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
Grateful
Parents
Music
" That's what hip-hop is: It's sociology and English put to a beat, you know. "
Talib Kweli
Hip-Hop
Beat
Know
" The beautiful thing about hip-hop is it's like an audio collage. You can take any form of music and do it in a hip-hop way and it'll be a hip-hop song. That's the only music you can do that with. "
Talib Kweli
Song
You
Beautiful
" 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
Story
More
Hip-Hop
" Being called 'conscious' is a great thing to be, but it's the connotations and preconceived notions that come with the buying audience about what conscious music can be. "
Talib Kweli
Come
Buying
Audience
" I tour whether I have album out or not. I tour more than any other hip-hop artist. "
Talib Kweli
Hip-Hop
More
Tour
" I'm at a loss for words. But even my loss is amplified. "
Talib Kweli
Loss
Amplified
Even
" If I'm performing with a DJ, it's all on me to draw the energy. I like the camaraderie of a band. "
Talib Kweli
Me
Like
Energy
" Hip-hop isn't as complex as a woman is. "
Talib Kweli
Complex
Hip-Hop
Woman
" When I'm in the studio, I'm strictly thinking about the beats, the rhymes and the song. The decision I make once the songs are created, and there's a barcode put on the package, and I'm out there in the street selling it, those decisions as a businessman are different than the creative decisions you make. "
Talib Kweli
Decision
Decisions
Thinking
" Homosexuality in hip-hop is an extension of homosexuality in the black community. The black community is very, very conservative when it comes to homosexuality, and I don't mean conservative in the good way, like we're saving money. I mean very intolerant. "
Talib Kweli
Good
Money
Hip-Hop
" I don't feel comfortable making empty music. "
Talib Kweli
Making
Comfortable
Feel
" There's consciousness in my music, and my music comes from a conscious place. And when people say that, I certainly take it as a compliment. But my job, in terms of selling my music, is to be universal and to try to get it to everybody. "
Talib Kweli
Music
Job
Compliment
" Once you're signed to a label you compromise. "
Talib Kweli
Label
Signed
You
" My personal take on politics is I deal with social situations and cultural situations in my music and in my life. I have said on record many times that I haven't voted. I'm not the type of person who says, 'I'm never going to vote.' I think it's clear to me that our system has failed us. "
Talib Kweli
Life
Me
Music
" Woman are complex creatures. "
Talib Kweli
Creatures
Complex
Woman
" Young kids should be doing music that has shock value. They'll grow out of it. "
Talib Kweli
Music
Young
Value
" As far as being on a major label, some labels get it and get what they have to do, and some labels don't. I don't think the label I'm on necessarily gets it, but I think over time they're gonna have to. "
Talib Kweli
Labels
Over
Time
" I think music sharing of any kind is great. "
Talib Kweli
Sharing
Kind
Music
" We're in an illusion about what our role is in world politics and foreign affairs, and our policies are killing and destroying and doing a lot of things that we are not aware of. "
Talib Kweli
Things
World
Doing
" 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
Job
Best
Art