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" There's already been black presidents who've been corrupt, so it doesn't strike me that having a black man in office means he's going to be the Messiah. "

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" We weren't raised Muslim - we were born Muslim. I didn't go to a Muslim school, but it was just the theme song. It was ambient. "

" 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. "

" This nation was founded by rebels and revolutionaries, and its flags were carried across the battlefields by people who were very, very against the status quo and who questioned and criticized. "

" With Australian audiences, there's a certain level of education - as far as how much access and exposure they have to music from various genres. So when you do 'Big Day Out' and there are all these different musical acts, you see the same people in your crowd that were there for a completely different artist. "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" For me, I never wore my religion on my sleeve, you know what I'm saying? I never put myself out there as Lupe Fiasco, he's Muslim, he's from Chicago, he likes to ride a skateboard. "

" Sometimes I wish I never found the Internet. Sometimes I regret getting a laptop and Wi-Fi for logging into the Internet because it is such a distraction. If you have any addictive personality, the Internet will magnify it. "

" It was, 'If you don't do 'The Show Goes On,' your album's not coming out.' I had nothing to do with that record - nothing. I was literally told how I should rap on it. But I'm a bastard, 'cos I'll turn around and put it back in your face. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I didn't go out shooting for anybody in particular because I shot for everybody unparticular. I make records for Muslims, Christians, rock 'n roll kids, skateboard kids. "

" I look at people like Picasso and Da Vinci and Escher and Miles Davis, and they'll write or paint that one definitive masterpiece of maybe 50 that they have that's really trying to go outside the box, trying to do something that's tough. And then when you accomplish it, you look back and go, 'Yeeaaaah - masterpiece.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Reggae, oh man. It's the ultimate music. The positivity. The musicality. The whole cultural expressionism of it. The danceability. Just the cool factor. The melody factor. Some of it comes from a religious place. If there were a competition of who makes the best religious music, it would definitely be the Rastafarian reggae. "

" I can't play any instrument for the life of me, but I know what I want to hear. "

" If you want to relate me to the newer cats, let's go. Let's go line for line and bar for bar. If it's all about spitting and metaphors and MCing and lyrics and entendres, I will eat 99 percent of you dudes up. "

" 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. "

" People don't understand that where I come from, everyone is either a convict, been in jail, been in a gang, is a hooligan of some sorts, but those are my brothers, my family and the people that I travel with. Those are the people that I roll with. "

" I think it is important that you have people from all different vanguards, from all different walks of society and different viewpoints to be focused on the struggle for equality and democracy. We need as many champions for the cause and as many events as possible to help keep this in focus. "

" 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. "

" In my fight against terrorism, to me, the biggest terrorist is Obama, and the United States of America. "

" The economical policies that are instigated really makes you think that the American government is a bunch of evil bastards. So just because you're black, you're still representing that government, and when Obama came into office he enacted the same policies that we would critique other presidents for. "

" 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. "

" You know, my goal, once I leave the music business, is like, 'Man, Lupe didn't lead us astray.' It comes directly from Islam: leading people astray is the worst thing you could do. Especially in perpetuity; like, your music continues to go on and live without you. That risk is too great for me; I'm gonna keep it positive. "

" I always preach that you have to be active as a citizen no matter what, and some people just voting as an excuse not to do anything. "

" 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 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. "