Talib Kweli Quotes

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Talib Kweli

Profession : Musician

Birth : October 3, 1975

I remember looking back on a photo of me... wearing a suit that was, like, two sizes too big for me. I think a lot of guys don't know what fits.

Talib Kweli

You know, there's a lot of activism that doesn't deal with empowerment, and you have to empower yourself in order to be relevant to any type of struggle.

Talib Kweli

You gotta eat right, you gotta have healthy habits, you know, and balance out your decadence with a healthy lifestyle during the day.

Talib Kweli

Honestly, you have to take care of yourself. That's probably something I have learned on the road.

Talib Kweli

You know, I've learned a lot from every person I've collaborated with, from Madlib to Jean Grae and Hi-Tek, to Mos to DJ Quik, to even somebody like Jermaine Dupri. I've taken something important away from every experience.

Talib Kweli

My fondest memories were watching the Beastie Boys get prepped to come on stage. They had a lot of antics and they play a lot of basketball... then they were giving out cameras to the crowd, and performing from the bleachers. The most important thing I learned was that you control your crowd, not the other way around.

Talib Kweli

People can be inspired the way I've been inspired by music.

Talib Kweli

You make knowledge relevant to life and you make it important for children to learn things that will really relate to things going on in their lives, and not abstract.

Talib Kweli

Being called 'conscious' is a great thing to be, but it's the connotations and preconceived notions that come with the buying audience about what conscious music can be.

Talib Kweli

What's more condescending and corny than someone telling you how much more money they have than you and telling you basically, 'I don't care about poor people,' which is a large part of what you hear of corporate hip-hop on the radio.

Talib Kweli

When I look at the arc of my career, my focus is on lyricism, right? I own that.

Talib Kweli

Artists look at the environment, and the best artists correctly diagnose the problem. I'm not saying artists can't be leaders, but that's not the job of art, to lead. Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte - there are artists all through history who have become leaders, but that was already in them, nothing to do with their art.

Talib Kweli

You'll be fooled if you only get your hip-hop from the mainstream, you know. The things that move people are not just found in the mainstream cultures. And when we talk about hip-hop in general, hip-hop's basically preoccupied with life.

Talib Kweli

My musical influence is really from my father. He was a DJ in college. My parents met at New York University. So he listened to, you know, Motown, and he listened to Bob Dylan. He listened to Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones, but he also listened to reggae music. And he collected vinyl.

Talib Kweli

My kids are the most inspiring thing that pushes me. It used to be because they were born, and I had to take care of them. Now it's because my son raps, and he's better than me. So now I gotta keep up with him, you know what I'm saying?

Talib Kweli

If you look at my career, doing albums with Norah Jones, Justin Timberlake, Gucci Mane and Lil Wayne or KRS-One and Jean Grae, I can't be pigeonholed.

Talib Kweli

Young kids should be doing music that has shock value. They'll grow out of it.

Talib Kweli

I think hip-hop is no more misogynistic than America is as a society. I just think hip-hop is a lot more brash, a lot more bold, a lot more loquacious. There are a lot more words that go into a hip-hop song than go into a regular song.

Talib Kweli

The materialism, the brashness, the misogyny - everything in hip-hop is amplified. Misogyny is a good example of something that is completely amplified in hip-hop. I do think there is more than enough of a balance, though, for fans who are willing to search it out.

Talib Kweli

The only way for me to be an artist is to be honest in my craft. If I veer from that, I'm not giving the investors what they want. Sometimes it's my job as an artist to know what I want to do, even when the fans tell me different.

Talib Kweli