It's always been most important for me to figure out "my space" rather than trying to check out what everyone else is up to, minute by minute. Technology is making it easier to connect to other people, but maybe harder to keep connected to yourself--...
Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.
We change people through conversation, not through censorship.
I'm here to tell niggas it ain't all swell. There's Heaven then there's Hell niggas One day your cruisin' in your seven, Next day your sweatin', forgettin' your lies, Alibis ain't matchin' up, bullshit catchin' up Hit with the RICO, they repoed your ...
Housing projects can seem like labyrinths to outsiders, as complicated and intimidating as a Moroccan bazaar. But we knew our way around.
A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.
You could name practically any problem in the hood and there'd be a rap song for you.
Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.
To me, its just a word, a word whose power is owned by the user and his or her intention. People give words power, so banning a word is futile, really. 'Nigga' becomes 'porch monkey' becomes 'coon' and so on if that's what's in a person's heart. They...
I couldn't even think about wanting to be something else; I wouldn't let myself visualize another life. But I wrote because I couldn't stop. It was a release, a mental exercise, a way of keeping sane.
