Michael Dyson Quotes

Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride.

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.

Consciousness rap - a term that I don't think exactly exists but gets thrown around a lot - is not exactly popular.

There are two separate systems in America. One for the privileged, and one for everybody else.

I think Tupac was more someone who was trying to inform us about what was going on, and he did it through entertainment.

When Tupac came out, my writing changed for sure. I learned from it. It was a cultural thing.

I don't know that there is a, quote, 'hip-hop lifestyle.' I think the music responds to complex social issues and injustices; I think it also raises complex social questions.

There is still consciousness in hip hop.

Hip-hop is not about crime. Hip-hop is not about being a gangster.

There's a lot of other rappers that aren't what they claim to be, and they get a pass because they're black.

I don't like political rappers.

I think the reality is that there's a role for everybody to play in the work of social justice and that we have to organize everybody. That means that Silicon Valley has to be organized, the fashion industry has to be organized, the formerly incarcerated have to be organized, the teachers.

Chevron's failure to adhere to basic standards of decency undermines the credibility of our capitalist model and diminishes confidence that our judicial system can serve the poor as well as the rich.

Ben Carson said black people worked for less. I have breaking news: we built this joint for free. We didn't build it for less.

There's a lot of hip-hop that's oriented toward a progressive view of America because it's oriented toward a civil rights progress and a critique of the power structure.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, in general, by putting this idea out there that the one percent is leeching off the 99 percent, is making a new discussion, making people figure out how to withhold their labor and come and put their issues on the table with the ruling class all over the country and all over the world.

Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar sounds decades older than he is, and it's not necessarily the wear and tear that comes from a rough life; instead, his world-weariness seems to result from years of soul-searching.

I don't want people to confuse me as an MC that talk about nothing.

I grew up on Public Enemy, which had a message with great music behind it.

People often link grime with other things, like street culture, and clashing, and MC battles and whatnot. But no one's ever talked in misogyny in grime. That's often linked to hip-hop, I know people talk about that is a problem in hip-hop. But not grime.

I'm a student of Ice Cube and Scarface, which means the stuff I rap about is not radio-friendly, and it's very opinionated. and it's very much from the perspective of a black man in America, and our opinion ain't always popular when we have a political opinion.

The Government should be taking notice of the youth of today so much more. They're trying to keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor. If I sat down with David Cameron in a room, I would ask him how he feels about it and what the hell he's doing about it.

If you think about it, hip-hop came out of nothing. It was a response to oppression.

In my shows, I always try to incorporate music because it's the most natural way to set a tone. So if I want to do a show about depression, I use the opera. If I want to do a show about greed, I use spoken word. If I want to do a show about the injustice that's taking place in the world, I might play Sam Cooke.

Sports - especially the NBA - function as a place where American society pretends to discuss and pretends to solve questions and historical agonies that can't possibly be solved within the realm of sports.