Urban Youth Quotes

I realized how far-reaching the effect of hip hop was when I walked by a jewelry store named Bling in a small, rural town in France. Hip hop has made a huge impact on urban culture. Yet many brands still don't speak to young people in a tone and manner that's representative of them.

Growing up in the inner city, a lot of kids didn't think reading was cool. I'm trying to show them that it is cool and the importance of growing and learning outside of their everyday lives, which is a lot of times sports.

I think rap in the street when they have rap competitions is thrilling because these kids are making it up and having a go at each other. They've got something to say. This is about getting their frustrations out.

I grew up in Compton: 116th and Wilmington.

Every ghetto kid that walks the earth can see something in KRS-One that reminds him of himself.

The way you have to think in chess is good for everyday thinking, really, especially for brothers in the urban community who never take that second look, never take that second thought.

I was raised in Harlem. I never found a book that took place in Harlem. I never had a church like mine in a book. I never had people like the people I knew. People who could not find their lives in books and celebrated felt bad about themselves. I needed to write to include the lives of these young people.

Unfortunately, we have a 50% unemployment rate among our urban youth of color. It's not about making green jobs more attractive. It's about making them more available. And that requires Congress passing legislation that will give a real break to the people who want to introduce new technologies to the American marketplace.

Like most ghetto kids I knew it was important to be 'somebody' so I became a good soccer player, because excelling at a sport seemed to make you special.

With 'At What Cost,' I was basically reliving a time in my life during the go-go era. I remember when it was popping for my generation and how that felt and what it looked like.

You walk into the playgrounds in Shanghai and Beijing, and you see youngsters who are shorter, shaking and baking and having attitude. And Jeremy Lin is going to inspire all of them.

I don't wanna be a Londoner! Growing up, that was hell - being one of them kids who wears Air Force 1s and that. It made me feel sick.

As gang members, as young dudes in the streets, especially in L.A., we're the effect of a situation. We didn't wake up and create our own mindstate and our environment; we adapted our survival instincts.

I've got two kids who are native New Yorkers. It's kind of astonishing, raising two girls who are full-blooded New Yorkers. It's awesome and scary, because they're so much cooler than me.

Thug Life to me is dead.

I would provide more opportunities for the kids of urban communities to go to school and learn trades - to get more jobs to take care of their families.

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

I think a kid from the inner city, if I had to recruit, is the ideal person for MMA. They'd be less likely to be affected by hard work. They'd be less likely to not appreciate something when someone is helping them out, because they probably don't have a ton of stuff.

People are used to music that justifies street culture but something that's not touched on is why these kids act the way they act, live the way they live.

Growing up in Harlem, I was always in the parks playing ball.

I turned a lot of people in white America - and not just white America, but middle-class America - into hip-hoppers, you know?

I'm a city boy.

I come from a young, hip-hop, urban world.

When I was designing, I had in mind Jimi Hendrix, and I could hardly find skinny indie black kids to wear my clothes. I remember one telling me he had to swap his skinny jeans for baggy ones in the subway before going home, so he wouldn't get in trouble in his neighborhood.

Crack offered a lot of money to the inner-city youth who didn't go to college. Which enabled them to become businessmen. I know about maybe five people in the entertainment industry who did their peak work as a result of crack usage.