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" 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. "

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" You have educate the masses to exactly what their tax dollars are going to pay for. I think once people educate themselves and open up their minds to understand that on that really basic level, then you'll have some type of change in the way that Americans associate themselves and participate in their own political process. "

Lupe Fiasco

You

Political

People

" I was literally told for 'The Show Goes On' that I shouldn't rap too deep. I shouldn't be too lyrical. It just needs to be something easy on the eyes. Like a record company telling Picasso that we don't need these abstract interpretations of life, where people have to sit down and look at it and break it down. "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

" There is no line of demarcation between the amateurs and the pros; everyone is using the same tactics and playing in the same arenas. The only thing that separates them is radio, but the artist doesn't control who goes to radio and who doesn't. "

" Everybody has their opinion on what's 'real,' and what's they choose to listen to and their personal preference. Whether they're 2 years old or 200 years old. And people can listen to whatever they want. "

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

" 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 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.' "

" 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. "

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

Lupe Fiasco

Dive

Jump

" 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 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 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. "

" 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. "

" I think Romney's talking himself out of the election, to be honest. I was wondering what was gonna happen when the Republican power structure turned the money on, and then they turned on the money and nothing happened. "

" 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. "

" 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 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 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. "

" 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.' "

" I do understand that America is a predominantly Christian country. A lot of morals and values are based in Christianity as opposed to Buddhism, which it's not, or Judaism, which it's not, or Islam, which it's definitely not. So I'm not going to lie to myself and just be like, 'Well you know, everybody's equal.' Because we're not. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 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?' "

" 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.' "

" What's the biggest commercial for aggression, sexuality and materialism? What gets pumped into these kids' heads? Taking someone else's girl, which is so laissez-faire in hip-hop, will get you killed in the streets, but it doesn't seem to be an issue when you hear it on the radio. "

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