Quotes from Lupe Fiasco

Before my father would open up a karate school in a particular neighborhood, he'd clean up the block - kick all the drug dealers and gang bangers off the block. My father was very clear: 'I've got guns too, and I'll kill you just as much as a rival gang would.' And he meant it. He was a man of many facets and complexities.

All the big revolutions, whether it's the Industrial Revolution, the Arab Spring, those changes happened by economic and social shifts brought about by the people's voices, and those things weren't voted for. Most of our changes today are brought about through technology, not by voting.

I always preach that you have to be active as a citizen no matter what, and some people just voting as an excuse not to do anything.

I think it is important that you have people from all different vanguards, from all different walks of society and different viewpoints to be focused on the struggle for equality and democracy. We need as many champions for the cause and as many events as possible to help keep this in focus.

I look at people like Picasso and Da Vinci and Escher and Miles Davis, and they'll write or paint that one definitive masterpiece of maybe 50 that they have that's really trying to go outside the box, trying to do something that's tough. And then when you accomplish it, you look back and go, 'Yeeaaaah - masterpiece.'

I think that American presidents, that position in itself, as well as American foreign policy, it has terrorism in it. CIA agents going to overthrow certain governments - they're using terrorist tactics. They're not going in there like, 'Hey, you wanna have some cake?'

There's already been black presidents who've been corrupt, so it doesn't strike me that having a black man in office means he's going to be the Messiah.

The men can have a moral compass that is just unshakeable, they can have ethics that run to the core.

I'm a big fan of science fiction, animation, and things of that nature. Other worlds and that type of stuff.

I went from MC to being MS, this microphone controller is the motivational speaker.

When I retire, I want to step away on a positive note. What you put out into the world comes back to you. You actually change the world with what you do. I want to put some good in the world.

If you are what you say you are A superstar Then have no fear The camera's is here and the microphones and they wanna know Oh oh oh oh yeah If you are what you say you are Then have no fear

This game wears on you. It tears you down. It's perpetual motion for some people who've achieved a level of independence, like Madonna and Jay-Z - they don't need to do music anymore. But there's people who need it. And in that need, that's when it's tough and it tears you to pieces.

For me, I never wore my religion on my sleeve, you know what I'm saying? I never put myself out there as Lupe Fiasco, he's Muslim, he's from Chicago, he likes to ride a skateboard.

I don't mind payin' for the police and for streets and sanitation, or road work, bridges, trains, food subsidies and welfare. But I don't wanna pay for bombs to fight proxy wars in the middle of nowhere against enemies in the night.

I was born Muslim, but for a large part of my life, I wasn't necessarily raised Muslim. My father always kept everything around us, from Western philosophy to Eastern philosophy.

Everybody has their opinion on what's 'real,' and what's they choose to listen to and their personal preference. Whether they're 2 years old or 200 years old. And people can listen to whatever they want.

I never want to be an artistic bully, and put myself above anyone else... or be more prestigious than anyone else. You like what you like, and you have to take that as you want it.

You have educate the masses to exactly what their tax dollars are going to pay for. I think once people educate themselves and open up their minds to understand that on that really basic level, then you'll have some type of change in the way that Americans associate themselves and participate in their own political process.

People say, 'If you don't vote, then you don't have a right to say anything. But nine times outta 10, I pay more taxes than they do - so even if I don't vote, I still have the right to speak out.

I'm just trying to do the opposite of left, as long as there's the opposite of death, ya know Yes, ya test and I just might bring the opposite of life, til' there's no one the opposite of right

I don't hate the music, but I hate the process. When I look at it, I don't see song titles and artwork, I see the fight - I see the emotions, the blood, sweat and tears. There are a couple of songs on there that I love; but 'Lasers' is a little bit of what you love, a little bit of what you like, and a lot of what you had to do.

I trust people to be human. Sometimes you do things that make amazing amounts of sense; sometimes you do things that don't make any sense whatsoever.

I don't really get the same kinda romance that I would get from, like, jazz. And even to a lesser extent to rock 'n roll. Rock 'n roll has a romance to it - how can I put it? A very vulgar romance, but still a romance; whereas hip hop has more facade.