Wyclef Jean Quotes

No, I'll stay Ice-T. This is what got me here, I'm always going to stay true to that. If it weren't for hip-hop I wouldn't be doing all these other things.

I like Modest Mouse. I'm our biggest fan. And enemy. I won't waste people's time by putting out a Modest Mouse record just because. That's fair, right?

In hip-hop, what you have is you have a lot of formulaic-type bands or rappers that come up. They saw something on the radio, and they want to mimic that formula. And that's just boring. I don't wanna record something just to make money; I want to record something to enjoy it and have fun because I'm a music lover.

You can usually tell when people aren't being authentic, but that goes for every artist, not just white artists.

I feel responsible to make something original as a Japanese artist. There are lots of singers and guitarists, but I feel that on stage it's meaningless to copy something someone has done before.

Sometimes you have the trends that's not that cool. You may have certain artists portraying these trends and don't really have that lifestyle, and then it gives off the wrong thing. And it becomes kinda corny after awhile. It's really about keeping hip-hop original and pushing away the corniness in it.

I think about never losing my voice, never giving in, never selling out, always keeping black, always sticking to the street. Staying neighborhood and not Hollywood.

The things that are going to be in all my records, for as long as I'm making them, are going to go back to who I am and where I'm from and the lifestyle that I live and come from - and I don't know how I could ever get any of that close enough to pop to be considered a pop act.

I respect Malayalam films the same way I respect Bengali films. I think Malayalam films have not compromised on the essence and have kept their own statement and are coming up with very good themes.

I'm still trying to keep it original, staying true to my sound.

I was born in Hip Hop. That's all I ever needed.

To be hip-hop is much more than just rapping in the production. It is more in the attitude.

I know now that he who hopes to be universal in his art must plant in his own soil. Great art is like a tree, which grows in a particular place and has a trunk, leaves, blossoms, boughs, fruit, and roots of its own. The more native art is, the more it belongs to the entire world, because taste is rooted in nature. When art is true, it is one with nature. This is the secret of primitive art and also of the art of the mastersMichelangelo, Czanne, Seurat, and Renoir. The secret of my best work is that it is Mexican.

Some writers' view of things depends upon the success of the final result. I'd rather stand or fall on my own concepts. But there is a fine line to be drawn between pointing up something or distorting it.

Art is either revolution or plagiarism

There's nothing as perfect as the initial idea. And the only reason I write and direct is to protect the writing, because that's what's most precious.

I'm not the 'rappity-rapper' type dude. All my music is really true. I can't just rap about nothing, just metaphors and putting words together. I can't just smash out material like other guys. I just want my albums to be crazy every time I drop one.

You are not doing hip hop; you ARE hip hop.

Any combining, mixing, adding, diluting, exploiting, vulgarizing, or popularizing of abstract art deprives art of its essence and depraves the artist's artistic consciousness. Art is free, but it is not a free-for-all.

And if there is still one hellish, truly accursed thing in our time, it is our artistic dallying with forms, instead of being like victims burnt at the stake, signaling through the flames.

I tended not to be concerned about whether a song was going to be a hit when I wrote it. Because it became evident that none of us knew what was a hit and what wasn't. So I thought if I just write what I like, why shouldn't people like what I like?

There is a kind of sense of truth and reconciliation that is non-formalized, but it's understood and accepted. Haitians are Haitians and there is an inherent loyalty that forgives an awful lot.

Art has a will of its own. It has nothing to do with the taste of the moment or what's expected of you. That's a formula for dead art, or fashionable art.

If you just write the kinds of stories you think others will want to read, you'll be competing with cartoonists who are far more enthusiastic for that kind of comic than you are, and they'll kick your ass every time.