Chuck D Quotes

Ice-T in the music has done some outrageous things.

I decided I was just going to sing the type of songs I gravitated toward and inspired me and moved me. I was going to let the people whose job it was to decide what places to put it, and let them do that. I'll stick to the singing part.

Bands like Culture Club and artists like me, you tend to concentrate on the live arena because that's where you can be your most authentic. That's where you have the most power.

I play sad bastard music. For the money.

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.

My philosophy is that I'm an artist. I perform an art not with a paint brush or a camera. I perform with bodily movement. Instead of exhibiting my art in a museum or a book or on canvas, I exhibit my art in front of the multitudes.

If you say, 'I'm going to cut this song because I know the teenagers are going to love it,' well, then you're going to alienate everybody else. When I cut my record, I'm just going to cut the things that I like, and whoever likes it, likes it. That's too much work to try to figure out the demographic. That's too much like a business.

I'm sure my children will be artists. I hope they will direct because it is much more interesting. Acting is great, and I love it, but it is very passive, and it depends on other people's desire, and you depend on others all the time.

Can't a rapper insist, like other artists, on a fictional reality, in which he is somehow still on the corner, despite occupying the penthouse suite?

An actor cannot be a censor. I'm there to interpret.

I was king of the mountain for a long time, well, I don't want that no more. I like to perform every once in a while for people who want to see me, and cut albums of music that is what I'm really about.

I love doing stand-up. It's so self-contained - you go there, you do it, you go home - but with telly, there are too many people involved with it with opinions. You have a product, and everyone wants to change it.

The music industry is such a different world from the acting world. Everything is really last minute, but I love the challenge, and I love owning my material and being able to put out what I want.

I don't have to compete in the charts. I can just be myself as a musician, a songwriter and play with the musicians that I really love.

It is crucial that rappers have the chance to express the truth that is in their heart.

I look at rap as an opportunity to act. My head is full of different characters - in each song I'm auditioning a character.

All I ever wanted was to perform, make music, make videos.

I love hip hop, and I have a bunch of urban songs I write for fun that I can't put on my albums because people would laugh and point.

I can play whatever I want and play whatever the fans want to hear. I don't have to be like a salesperson up there talking about my CD through the whole show.

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

I believe that a web series allows actors the freedom to express their views.

I don't like political rappers.

I'm not with G-Unit for protection. I chose G-Unit because I felt like that's the place where the people would be more supportive of a person that is considered a rebel.

I'm not Tupac or this prophetic dude or anything like that. I just want to make music and have fun.

For someone like me, music is all I've ever thought about - playing big shows, and then, when you take something that is based around your music and put it in a completely different medium, it's a really interesting and cool emotion to watch.