Talib Kweli Quotes

I think people are enticed by indie rap and every time you have a group going against the grain, they're gonna be like, 'Wow, you did it yourself in 2012, that's impressive - how did you do it? What're you doing that's different? And how can I be a part of it?'

I've always wanted my lyrics to say something meaningful and, you know, you always want to tell a message with your art. So yes, as I continue to write music, I will write about things that are real and things that I feel aren't written about a lot.

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

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.

More people should rap about reality.

Rap music was and is, for me, everything.

It's not about what you get out but what you put into hip hop as a genre.

There is still consciousness in hip hop.

I don't love all hip-hop, but I do relate to stuff like early Nas, 2Pac, Biggie, and MF Doom because they're also trying to escape a scenario.

Underground hip-hop is, like, one of my foundations, I would say a cornerstone of my foundation of my musical tastes.

Rap music's the only thing that ever mattered.

My work as a whole is about excavating and shining a light on pieces of history that not only need to be seen and heard, but that can also add to the conversation about what's going on now.

My hope is that very young people in America who have experience with the streets, hip-hop, college, higher learning will fuse all that together. I just want to be the music that can relate to both sides, that stitch together their lives or represents their experiences.

No matter what road I take, I can never get too far away from the conscious lyric and the socially conscious content.

Historically, hip-hop is about a generation of artists rapping about the realities they see in their neighborhoods or the 'truths' they hear growing up in their homes.

When I'm in the studio with other rappers, we talk about social issues.

Hip-hop gave a generation a common ground that didn't require either race to lose anything; everyone gained.

Hip-Hop is bigger than the government.

I think there's good music out there. I just think that radio stations don't play it.

The courage to be yourself is the essence of hip hop

what exactly is postmodernism, except modernism without the anxiety?

There was a time when people would go search out underground records. Now, underground means free, and people don't really care for it. So now artists tend to go more pop and look for the radio. You know, the radio never wanted you to speak about anything, so the music is kinda influenced by the hands of the radio which wants to homogenize it and dilute it and sanitize it. And for the most part, nobody's takin' the time to seek out the cats that are still tryin' to talk, so they have a difficult time being heard, like Chuck D said.

I see that happening with hip hop purists now. Where you have an artist like a Kendrick [Lamar] or a Drake, who are really trying different things emotionally, different things musically, and on a mainstream level. And you have underground hip hop fans dissing it, for the simple fact that it's mainstream - not because what they're doing is whack, or what they're doing is not sincere.