Chuck D Quotes

I think that most people who write about music just want to fill some paper. They're not really interested in getting to the heart of something. Otherwise, they wouldn't write what they write.

I feel like when I listen to music nowadays, it's a lot of commands. It's a lot of demands. Do this dance, or feel like this. It's not like, 'how do you feel?'

As you get older you lose interest in what you hear on the radio. But you can't be like that, you have to enjoy what's going on.

The chorus of “Jack and Diane” is: Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone. Are you kidding me? The thrill of living was high school? Come on, Mr. Cougar Mellencamp. Get a life.

Baby, high school's over. High school's never over.

When I was in high school, The Dave Matthews Band was a local band, and that was the first time I was starting to connect with a live band that was something that wasn't on the radio or TV.

I've done a lot of growing up since the age of 16 and I really wanted that to be reflected in my music.

When I was in high school, if my favorite band got too popular, I'd watch carefully.

I don't think of them as teenage songs. The things that happen to you in high school are the same things that happen your entire life. You can fall in love at 60; you can get rejected at 80.

Usually, I think you have most of your musical influences locked down by the time you're 16.

I remember way back when I was young, 10 years ago.

I feel it was just a few years ago I was running around in short pants.

I think 'Invisible' is a great song, but I don't know how accessible it is.

I've got a good memory. Sometimes it's a curse. I remember what the light was like in the room the first time I heard Van Morrison's 'Moondance.'

When I was at school, I was in choirs more than anything else, from a very young age, about 9 years old. And then I started taking drum lessons.

I think your teenage years define your musical roots forever. You're always looking for a theme for your high school years.

Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, in order to provide articles for people who can't read.

You can really walk around a song and completely, if it's a good song, look at it from a lot of different angles. Johnny Cash with Rick Rubin illustrated that perfectly.

I still feel like that 17-year-old-kid that fell in love with country music, but I also am allowed to write songs about being a man, too, which I think is the coolest place I've ever been in my life.

Some of the songs on the radio are really outrageous. I listen to the lyric. If the lyric doesn't make sense, I don't like the song.

But I feel like I developed my own love for hip-hop and rap music by myself. Just growing up and hearing new things. As you grow up, you begin to listen to new music that this kid is listening to, then you begin to like your own music, and start discovering it yourself.

It drove me mad not being able to know more about Pink Floyd when I was a little kid. But that's the great thing - there was this mystery behind it, and we couldn't find out enough. It made your mind work, it made you seek after it or try to interpret it. It made you envision or imagine what they were doing.

I've listened to a lot of different styles of music growing up, and they've all influenced me at different times in my life.

I love music with everything I have, and when I am in a front of a classroom talking about music sometimes someone will ask me a question and it reminds me to really think about something, to really feel something.

I feel like 'Pitchfork' has a style, and you always know what they're gonna say and what they're gonna pick apart.