Quotes from Talib Kweli

You have to learn how to harness technology so you can use it for positive stuff without being disconnected from nature.

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.

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

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.

The responsibility of an artist is to be honest with themselves.

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.

I met Mos Def around that time but I didn't hook up with him until I was about 17 or 18.

Music is not an exact science so depending on the time and the mode and the energy when we do it that will determine what happens with it.

I ignored your aura but it grabbed me by the hand, like the moon pulled the tide, and the tide pulled the sand.

We get high on all types of drugs when, all you really need is Love

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.

Hip-hop isn't as complex as a woman is.

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.

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.

Things are fluid in this world, and if you don't remain fluid, you get lost in the sauce.

I tour whether I have album out or not. I tour more than any other hip-hop artist.

And you know, art as commerce, doesn't really make too much sense, they don't go together.

If lyrics sold then truth be told/I'd probably be just as rich and famous as Jay-Z.

Once you're signed to a label you compromise.

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

A lot of these people, these program directors, just like anybody else in the world, even though they're supposed to be leaders in the world, they're followers. They follow what they think someone else is doing, instead of trying to blaze a trail.

The founder of Crunk Feminists is a Christian. If you claim to be a Christian, but then you attack somebody for saying you should approach a problem with love, you're not being a true Christian.

Love is blind, you just see bright light

I was always rhyming and doing it for the love before I found out I was gonna have children and when I found out, doing it for the love wasn't enough.