234 Quotes by Talib Kweli

Jazz is the greatest American art form and our greatest export. We don’t pay attention to the youth of jazz, don’t stoke the fires creatively for the youth coming up. I feel like jazz musicians became too much of purists – with Donald Byrd doing funk jazz in the ’70s.

I support the idea that artists have to make a stand. I’m with that – you’re putting the discussion on the table and you’re letting people know. You’re being brave as an artist and responsible to the community.

So I think hip-hop is moving and is going to continue to move in the direction of rappers just being honest with themselves, whether you’re talking about Common and Mos Def or Nas and 50 cent.

My parents are my biggest influences. My parents and my city. Brooklyn, New York, New York City, the community I grew up. I don’t feel like I’m special in that. I feel like that’s everybody.

But Rawkus is integral to what I do, because the cats who started Rawkus are the first ones who really saw my vision, and gave me a platform to get it out there, so I’m definitely totally grateful for that.

Being called a conscious rapper is quite a compliment. It’s a great thing to be. But as an artist, my nature is to not be in a box.

Hip hop has always been, for us, for artists who are pure to the craft – any place overseas, whether it’s Australia, any place in Asia, Germany, Africa, it becomes something where you can still go and work. Hip hop is an import culture. We’re spoiled by it here. It’s homegrown.

We’re in an illusion about what our role is in world politics and foreign affairs, and our policies are killing and destroying and doing a lot of things that we are not aware of.

I feel like I have way more resources, way more experience. I’m better. But my fans romanticize the earlier stuff, and I don’t think it’s just like a nostalgia thing of “He’s not as good” – I think it’s because that earlier stuff was aggressively marketed as a lifestyle to them.