Ilyasah Shabazz Quotes

Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history, and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such topics.

If you see something is going wrong within politics and the world today, then some Hip Hop artist is gonna come along and get straight with it. If they think that there's a lot of racism going on then there's another Hip Hop artist who's gonna come out and speak their mind.

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

Hip Hop emerged fearlessly and unappoligeticly reflecting our society.

Hip Hop is an extension of our very being, and so the study of Hip Hop is the study of self-expression leading to the study of one's true self.

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.

I come from Eastside Buffalo and prison cells. That's the beauty about hip-hop. It just brings everybody together.

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.

Sometimes I feel like rap music is almost the key to stopping racism.

Hip-hop is a beautiful thing. I think that the music genre itself has created more millionaires than any other music genre before it, especially in our community.

I don't think that early hip hop stood out to be a social critique. A lot of fans of mine think that hip hop's ultimate responsibility is to critique social structures.

I like the way hip-hop is now. It's grown up enough so that it can get involved with politics if it feels like it.

When you look at a guy like a Jay-Z or look at a guy like a Nas, you don't necessarily qualify them as conscious rap purely, although they are extremely conscious of the social inequities that prevail.

Dancehall is just like hip-hop in that it doesn't always talk about bling; it talks about conscious issues.

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.

I think the greatest hip-hop artist of all time is Jay-Z, without a doubt. He just keeps amazing me with his performance, and since '96, that guy has been producing at least one hit every summer and every winter. That's a pretty good resume.

Rap has so many possibilities that need to be explored. There are different factions of rap, but some are in a rut. Rap doesn't have to be about boosting egos and grabbing your crotch and dissing women. There's a way to make political and social issues interesting and entertaining to the young rap audience.

I think hip-hop does a very good job of infusing comedy and humor and wit into music, a lot more than other genres.

If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.

I always felt that rap didn't cause crime; it just reflected it.

In every interview I've got to explain something about being white but still being into hip hop. It's gone way beyond the musical aspect of the business. And I'm as critical about music as everybody else is.

I got tired of everybody repeating the same phrases in the hip-hop world.

I just appreciate the love that I get and support from hip-hop.

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

Hip-hop has always been speaking about the way your brain is manipulated by stress and struggle because hip-hop is borne from struggle.