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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. "

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" 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

Amazing

Rapper

Impossible

" 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. "

" You know, I've learned a lot from every person I've collaborated with, from Madlib to Jean Grae and Hi-Tek, to Mos to DJ Quik, to even somebody like Jermaine Dupri. I've taken something important away from every experience. "

" I will never do a record without some sense of responsibility. "

" 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. "

" The problem with our role is Americans live in a world of illusion. "

" Hi-Tek is on three or four songs on the new record. "

" I tour whether I have album out or not. I tour more than any other hip-hop artist. "

Talib Kweli

Hip-Hop

Tour

" I'm not looking to set a standard... but, I believe I have offered a challenge to others with my work. "

" I not only wanted to showcase lyrical skills but also continue to drop knowledge on the hiphop community. I'm looking to elevate through my music, and through my music I educate. "

" I think its man's nature to go to war and fight. "

Talib Kweli

Nature

Think

" 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. "

" Woman are complex creatures. "

" I don't think that early hip hop stood out to be a social critique. A lot of fans of mine think that hip hop's ultimate responsibility is to critique social structures. "

" 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. "

" 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

Hip-Hop

" The way I see it, if people truly love my music, they will support me in some way down the road. "

Talib Kweli

Love

Music

" I think music sharing of any kind is great. "

" As an artist, I have to be a leader of my fans, not, like, follow them. Because if I chose to follow them, you know, they could do it. You know, it's me who's doing it. "

" 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. "

" You make knowledge relevant to life and you make it important for children to learn things that will really relate to things going on in their lives, and not abstract. "

" 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

Music

" There are staples to my show. I have to be conscious about switching things up because I know people who saw me last year will say, 'He did that last time.' But if certain things work, they work. "

Talib Kweli

Work

Time

" 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. "

" I think hip-hop is no more misogynistic than America is as a society. I just think hip-hop is a lot more brash, a lot more bold, a lot more loquacious. There are a lot more words that go into a hip-hop song than go into a regular song. "

" I don't go into any album with pressing issues. I just try to write songs. "

" Once you're signed to a label you compromise. "

" What is Norah Jones' style? Is it just the albums that we've heard? She has a rock group where she plays guitar in, downtown in New York, so do we really know her style? "

" 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. "

" 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. "