Michael Dyson Quotes

I think the rap community always tells the truth. And I think that it's important that we listen to their voices so we can have a roadmap, because artists - almost every single artist in hip-hop, they paint a picture of society that's overlooked. The misogyny, the racism, the violence, the homophobia, these are things that we try to avoid instead of dealing with. All of that I see it so often.

Gangsta rappers, they call them. Not nearly as gangsta as the things that inspire them.. you know, a gangsta government that we operate under.

As long as there's a demand for gangsta rap, it will be supplied.

Everything I do is going to be gangsta rap, street based, street oriented... I'm from Gary, Indiana, and everybody's damn near at the poverty level.

You could name practically any problem in the hood and there'd be a rap song for you.

I'm fascinated by rap and by hip-hop. I think there's a lot of poetry in it. There's a lot of anger, a lot of social energy in it. And I think you'd better listen to it pretty carefully, 'cause it's important.

When I say 'hip-hop is dead,' basically, America is dead. There is no political voice. Music is dead.

When I first heard rap, I wasn't quick to be critical. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but I had a feeling it was a reflection of what's been happening in the ghetto.

N.W.A. were the first great rap audio documentarians of the problems in our inner cities.

Pop culture mirrors culture, and, I think, as a rapper, hip-hop in a lot of ways mirrors the things that are happening in urban neighborhoods.

As a criminal you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.

It's very easy for one talking about violence and hatred for the white man to appeal to [Negro from ghetto]. I have never thought of this, but I think this is quite true, that if, even if you talk to them about nonviolence from a tactical point of view, they can't quite see it because they don't even know they're outnumbered.

If I’d been talking about black trash, I might be lynched. If I was talking about white trash, I’d merely be another torchbearer in an ongoing national lynching.

You can hear the seven sins Blowin' through the ghetto wind.

Telling me that I’m obsessed with talking about racism in America is like telling me I’m obsessed with swimming when I’m drowning.

Rap music came along and saved my life. I started to tell the stories of the streets and that was my way out.

Barack Obama was a black man that lived on the South Side of Chicago, who had his share of troubles catching cabs.

Young black men in America have an identity ascribed to them that is a direct legacy of slavery.

They never lynch children, babies, no matter what they do they are whitewashed in advance.

Niggers was the ones on the rope, hanging off the thing. Niggas is the ones with gold ropes,hanging out at clubs.

It is only the Negro leadership, the bourgeois, hand-picked, handful of Negroes who think that they're going to get some kind of respect, recognition, or protection from the Government.

South Africa used to seem so far away. Then it came home to me. It began to signify the meaning of white hatred here. That was what the sheets and the suits and the ties covered up, not very well. That was what the cowardly guys calling me names from their speeding truck wanted to happen to me, to all of me: to my people. That was what would happen to me if I walked around the corner into the wrong neighborhood. That was Birmingham. That was Brooklyn. That was Reagan. That was the end of reason. South Africa was how I came to understand that I am not against war; I am against losing the war.

Hip-Hop is diverse. But the white, capitalist producers and distributors of Hip-Hop are most interested in the Hip-Hip that is misogynist, that is Black-hating, that is pugilistic, that is to say all about fighting and war and killing and gangsterism.