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" Things are fluid in this world, and if you don't remain fluid, you get lost in the sauce. "
Talib Kweli
Sauce
Things
World
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" I tour whether I have album out or not. I tour more than any other hip-hop artist. "
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" 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. "
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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. "
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" I met Mos Def around that time but I didn't hook up with him until I was about 17 or 18. "
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" You know, there's a lot of activism that doesn't deal with empowerment, and you have to empower yourself in order to be relevant to any type of struggle. "
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" And you know, art as commerce, doesn't really make too much sense, they don't go together. "
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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. "
Talib Kweli
Balance
Enough
Search
" I take certain steps to make sure I'm relevant artistically. I always have new music and a reason to be on the road. I'm not just playing 'Get By' over and over. I have 12 albums. "
Talib Kweli
Music
Always
New
" 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
" 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. "
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Life
Me
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" When Occupy Wall Street happened, I took my money out of Citibank. I already had problems with all the banks - Citibank, Bank of America - but I was kind of just too lazy to take my money out until I saw how Citibank responded to Occupy Wall Street. "
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Money
America
Lazy
" I don't go into any album with pressing issues. I just try to write songs. "
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Try
Write
Just
" People can be inspired the way I've been inspired by music. "
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Way
People
Been
" That's what hip-hop is: It's sociology and English put to a beat, you know. "
Talib Kweli
Hip-Hop
Beat
Know
" Hi-Tek is on three or four songs on the new record. "
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Three
Songs
Four
" So I think hip-hop is moving and is going to continue to move in the direction of rappers just being honest with themselves, whether you're talking about Common and Mos Def or Nas and 50 cent. "
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Hip-Hop
You
Think
" I am not a prisoner of conscious, but people try to make me one sometimes. It is both a gift and a curse. It's a high honour but can create limitations - I have to be fluid. "
Talib Kweli
Create
I Am
Me
" 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
" What's more condescending and corny than someone telling you how much more money they have than you and telling you basically, 'I don't care about poor people,' which is a large part of what you hear of corporate hip-hop on the radio. "
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Hip-Hop
Care
Money
" 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. "
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Good
Money
Hip-Hop
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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 think music sharing of any kind is great. "
Talib Kweli
Sharing
Kind
Music
" 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
" I think the line is where you're in the studio, you're creating. That belongs to you as an artist. Nothing should taint that. I shouldn't be thinking about what the fans want, I shouldn't be thinking about what the radio wants, what the label wants, what your manager wants, a song for the chicks, a song for the street. "
Talib Kweli
You
Artist
Think
" 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. "
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Focus
Job
Music
" I think all those artists are artists who are appreciated because you believe their words and you appreciate their honesty in their music. If you don't appreciate the honesty in the music, the beat can be fly as hell but you'll never give an emcee props. "
Talib Kweli
Honesty
Fly
Hell
" 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