Talib Kweli Quotes

My music is going to be true. I'm not out to sell records. I'm experiencing something, and it's what I feel.

I think that people respond to honesty in music, so I only choose songs that are the truth for me.

Music to me is about being honest, and it's what I've always pictured music as. I don't see the point of expressing yourself if you are going to be cryptic about it.

If you write songs and if you write music that's very sincere and very honest, it's pop music, but it is pop music with a lot of honesty and a lot of heart.

I'm not just painting for painting's sake. I want to be truthful.

I'm into sincerity in music and sincerity in art. If it doesn't feel true, I don't want to do it. Things that are too dramatic scare me. I think that's why I don't always fit into the world of performing arts.

As long as it feels valid to me and feels sincere, I'll do what I do under the moniker of Nine Inch Nails if it's appropriate. I would hate to think I would ever be in a position where I'm faking it to get a paycheck.

It's my responsibility to show people that this music is something they can trust in and believe in, and it's not a joke. It's not anything but 100 percent from my heart.

I'm just excited that I get to put out the music I love versus music just for the sake of it.

There is an incredible love in creating art unless somebody is saying, 'Hey, let's just make money,' because it doesn't work when you do it that way. If you are aiming for that, forget it.

If I'm not writing songs about things I've actually been through, it ruins the idea of making music to me.

I am quite certain in my heart of hearts that modern music and modern art is not a conspiracy, but is a form of truth and integrity for those who practise it honestly, decently and with all their being.

I would hate to make music and people love me for something that isn't me.

Any band that is out there chasing it is doing more destruction to music then someone who is out there playing what they truly feel.

I think I have great responsibility, and when I do my music, when I try to relate to my audience, I just try to do it in an honest fashion, you know, just try to be as earnest as possible and sometime it may be self-effacing. Sometimes it may be finger-pointing. Sometimes it may be beautiful, and sometime it may be ugly.

That's what I like about Frank Ocean or Bon Iver - they try to capture a feeling in the most sincere way.

Mainly, I don't like it when music is made solely to impress people or in order to please business people; it doesn't sound good to me. If you're making music in order to become famous or loved by the masses... that's not what I'm about. When somebody's making music for the wrong reasons, I hear it right away.

The first question at that time in poetry was simply the question of honesty, of sincerity.

My work has always been about authentic feeling, and I think we live in a time where we need that.

I always make music that is true to my spirit.

I know this sounds phony, but I don't start out on a project going, 'I'm going to make an emotional work,' you know what I mean? You try to tell the story directly and honestly and with passion.

I'm not the guy that wants to be famous and make loads of money and sell loads of records. I don't want that. I just want to be true. I want to be... I want to serve music. I want to be honest.

TLC was so real and authentic. And that's music as a whole. When it's an artist, and it comes from the heart, and that's really who you are, the fans attach to that.

His music was direct from his heart and brain in the purest form possible.

I wanna make stuff that sonically sounds really good. I don't wanna make a song about how people think I'm this when I'm really that. I don't wanna make a song about how I grew up broke.