Chuck D Quotes

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Chuck D

Profession : Musician

Birth : August 1, 1960

I'm a multi-tasker. I was down with that stuff before they invented the term.

Chuck D

Public Enemy is the security of the hip-hop party.

Chuck D

Rap is supposed to be about keeping it real and not relinquishing your roots in the community. Without that, it's just posturing. Somebody who claims to speak for the 'hood don't need no private jet.

Chuck D

Downloadable music is the biggest musical phenomenon since the Beatles, and the music industry is slow to come to grips with that.

Chuck D

You can't master time, but you have to work your hardest to manage it.

Chuck D

People are so confused about race and hip-hop that people didn't even consider the Beastie Boys one of the greatest rap groups of all time because they were white.

Chuck D

The Illuminati is just the evil, 'nameless' people who are behind governments.

Chuck D

I think governments are the cancer of civilization.

Chuck D

I came from a mother and father who always made me secure in my beliefs, and that's where the love came from.

Chuck D

When you travel the world, you have to watch and you have to listen. We're not going to come in to Ireland without an understanding that there's a history that's very sensitive.

Chuck D

I've signed with major labels, and I haven't had any control over the money.

Chuck D

The immediacy of the technology of the web allows us, as songwriters, to write something very sharp and quick. That has a lot to do with helping a songwriter be more reflective of reality, instead of being in an area where you have to process things. It's the difference between processing fish and catching it in a boat.

Chuck D

Government and culture are two diametrically opposed forces - the one blinds and oppresses, the other uplifts and unites.

Chuck D

What made me want to become a recording artist; I was the first artist that was repeatedly asked by a label to record with them. That label was Def Jam Records.

Chuck D

A lot of times black folks look for love in all the wrong places. You're always looking for somebody to love you, be accepted, and there's the insecurities that are even transmitted through rap. Everyone is trying to aim to please too much.

Chuck D

You should be a person inside the world with knowledge of your terrain. And if you lock yourself into the 2,000-by-3,000-square-mile, lower-48 box of the United States, you're going to be frustrated by its limitations. You gotta think outside the box.

Chuck D

Rappers should just be able to perform what they create and satisfy the people that like and love them.

Chuck D

Of course voting is useful. But then again, I don't put a big glow to it. Voting is about as essential as washing yourself. It's something you're supposed to do. Now, you can't go around bragging, expecting to get props because you voted. That's stupid.

Chuck D

I like Rick Ross as a person. I like Jay-Z and Kanye West as people. But I hate the companies that they record for.

Chuck D

I think traveling the world has helped to keep Public Enemy alive. We've never solely depended on the United States.

Chuck D