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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Talib Kweli

You

Important

Know

" But you have to be creative on how you sell yourself and market yourself. "

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

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

" 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. "

" I'm at a loss for words. But even my loss is amplified. "

" And you know, art as commerce, doesn't really make too much sense, they don't go together. "

Talib Kweli

Too Much

You

" 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. "

" 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

" My kids are the most inspiring thing that pushes me. It used to be because they were born, and I had to take care of them. Now it's because my son raps, and he's better than me. So now I gotta keep up with him, you know what I'm saying? "

Talib Kweli

Better

Son

" Before Eminem, the idea that there would be a white rapper that anybody would really check for was fantastic or amazing or impossible. "

" 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. "

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

Talib Kweli

Nature

Think

" War is not civilized. "

Talib Kweli

Civilized

War

" 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. "

" You gotta eat right, you gotta have healthy habits, you know, and balance out your decadence with a healthy lifestyle during the day. "

" 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. "

" Honestly, you have to take care of yourself. That's probably something I have learned on the road. "

" 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

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

" When I look at the arc of my career, my focus is on lyricism, right? I own that. "

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

" The only way for me to be an artist is to be honest in my craft. If I veer from that, I'm not giving the investors what they want. Sometimes it's my job as an artist to know what I want to do, even when the fans tell me different. "

Talib Kweli

Giving

Sometimes

" Skip the religion and politics, head straight to the compassion. Everything else is a distraction. "

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "