When we say, 'Look, Donald Trump was a friend to hip hop back in the day; so was Bill Clinton,' It doesn't mean that because he was a friend to hip hop back in the day, that the same Bill Clinton wasn't at the lead of this mass incarceration of African Americans today.
KRS-One
I came from the heart of the ghetto - there ain't no suburbia in me.
Self-management and self-control are the keys to advanced knowledge, and both are difficult to learn without a sense of your own cultural identity.
This is the problem with the United States: there's no leadership. A leader would say, 'Police brutality is an oxymoron. There are no brutal police. The minute you become brutal you're no longer police.' So, what, we're not dealing with police. We're dealing with a federally authorized gang.
The only time you had blacks, whites, and Latinos jamming together was in hip-hop. It's an unsung history.
Illiteracy causes violence. If you don't have enough words in your vocabulary, you can't even seek your way out of a situation.
If you vote for evil, you are evil yourself.
When you seek to do something, if you don't know the whole game plan, you're usually going to work against yourself.
I'm here to inspire young people to be part of the most magnificent culture on earth: hip-hop.
I have to put a business model together because certain businesses are approaching me as a legend, as if I'm on my way out. Same goes for the way I get presented on the VH1 Hip Hop Honors and BET. I get lifetime achievement awards because of who I am and what I've done, but they want to put me in a place, as if I'm on my way out.
The Temple of Hip-Hop makes sure that we don't just approach hip-hop just through music or through rap. We approach the totality of hip-hop.
Rap is something you live; hip hop is something you do.
The truth is nobody was a Muslim until Public Enemy came out. Then, everybody was Muslim this and Muslim that. It's a bandwagon thing. Islam is a way of life... it's a religion. It's not just something you put on a record.
There has always been a conscious effort to destroy any upliftment of the black race, whether that be physically, mentally, psychologically, morally, culturally, or economically.
I mistakably paid respect and condolences to the wrong Beastie Boy member King Ad-Rock when it should have been MCA. In light of this, I am redoing the song 'Hip Hop Speaks From Heaven' and I am pulling the original version off of my digital release. Historical accuracy is extremely important to me, so I accept all responsibility for this error.
Record companies feel they are the culture. Hip-hop has to begin to define, protect, and promote itself, and that's why we founded the Temple.
When you're not attached to anything, nothing can harm you. When people become attached, they can be harmed. I know this, so I don't attach myself to anything, really.
Even with so many artists using auto-tune, there's still a growing group of artists rising up and going in the opposite direction, making music that's real and fresh. And those cats are getting back to the basics without auto-tune. And a lot of those cats are packing out venues without getting played on the radio!
The only solution to the education system is to find yourself.
I flew everywhere for the first 10 years of my career, and I started to not like commercial transport. I just don't feel safe.
Maybe I'm the prophet of hip hop for real. Maybe I do come with some kind of divine principle behind me, because I know that every battle I've ever had I've always won.
People say I contradict myself because I come gangsta and teach at the same time. I don't want to be too much on either side, but I do want to speak to all audiences.
When my time is up in hip-hop, it's going to remain what Afrika Bambaataa thought it was supposed to be. It's going to remain what Kool Herc thought it was supposed to be; what Wu-Tang Clan sees it as; what Outkast sees it as; what Snoop Dogg sees it as. People are trying to forget that brand of hip-hop.
Only love is consistent because only love is unconditional.
Original hip hop manipulated technologies of all sorts; it was not manipulated by the technology itself.
High respect goes out to our mothers, our single mothers. This is why today the real community uplifts femininity and holds womanhood above, not equal to, masculinity.
Religion and God are totally separate. Religion is created by government. God is God.
My theory is that hip-hop is the most advanced version of civilisation on earth, and we are here to usher the rest of humanity into the Age of Aquarius.
In the future, hip-hop is going to be called American folklore.
Graffiti art brings you back to your human skills - your spirit and what your being is really about.
If the radio ever played my music, I would sue them. And they know it, which is why they don't play my music.
The ones that sell the most aren't the ones that are remembered.
I existed before the mainstream. Why would I join them? I watched the mainstream come up, and now I'm watching it collapse. I don't want to be a part of that.
I'm hoping to make the kind of difference in my lifetime that allows me to be remembered positively.
I am a youth minister, ordained by the Riverside Church in upper New York. But to declare myself a minister and begin to preach from the pulpit, from the Bible, to a congregation and to build a church, so to speak - I don't have a desire for that.
I'm the most humble rapper in the industry.
Jermaine Dupri is a b-boy, and he's dope.
Hip hop is a human skill, and the practice of real hip hop should remind us of our humanity.
If you don't know hip-hop, at least a little bit of it, you can't even call yourself an American.
Every ghetto kid that walks the earth can see something in KRS-One that reminds him of himself.
There is no forgiveness, justice, or healing on any level when hate is involved.
No child is racist. A child is born, and then they go through the educational system.
I do have a desire to bring a spiritual tone to the hip-hop community, which may force me to open a facility that teaches spiritual principles through the language of hip-hop culture.
I'm not a fan of public school at all; I think it's one of the greatest catastrophes of American history.
It's always baffled me why BET looks the way it does. This is Black Entertainment Television. Why are we up there, then, looking like idiots? It's because black people are marketing black people like that.
Hate reveals itself for what it really is - evil! It cannot see clearly, so it exposes itself at every turn, and those that truly love can see it.
DMX - everything this brother spits is hot. Everything. This is the heat right here. When I stand next to MCs, this is who I wanna stand next to.
Radio has always been just disgusting.
There's no distinction. A teacher is a preacher. The teachers in public schools are preachers, and the preachers in church are teachers.
I don't even want my music on mainstream radio. They don't deserve it. They destroy careers.
