The 48-year-old Brooklyn, New York City-born rapper Talib Kweli is one of the genre’s most cerebral artists. With his friend Mos Def, the two were known as Black Star and the duo’s self-titled album is one of the most essential in the genre’s canon.
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Given Kweli’s talents, popular releases, and his call out by the reverential Jay-Z on The Black Album, some may wonder what Kweli has to say outside of his lyrics. Find his thoughts on activism, technology, trailblazing, his kids, and so much more below.
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1. “As an artist, I have to be a leader of my fans, not, like, follow them. Because if I chose to follow them, you know, they could do it. You know, it’s me who’s doing it.”
2. “I like collaboration because, first of all, I’m good at writing lyrics. I don’t know how to make beats. I don’t play instruments. I’m not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it’s still a collaboration.”
3. “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.”
4. “I take certain steps to make sure I’m relevant artistically. I always have new music and a reason to be on the road. I’m not just playing ‘Get By’ over and over. I have 12 albums.”
5. “I am not a prisoner of conscious, but people try to make me one sometimes. It is both a gift and a curse. It’s a high honour but can create limitations—I have to be fluid.”
6. “It doesn’t get any more underground, conscious or indie than Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, but because they got a couple of really big pop hits, actually some of the biggest pop hits that hip-hop has ever seen, people are missing that part of their story. People are not counting that blessing.”
7. “My personal take on politics is I deal with social situations and cultural situations in my music and in my life. I have said on record many times that I haven’t voted. I’m not the type of person who says, ‘I’m never going to vote.’ I think it’s clear to me that our system has failed us.”
8. “When I’m in the studio, I’m strictly thinking about the beats, the rhymes and the song. The decision I make once the songs are created, and there’s a barcode put on the package, and I’m out there in the street selling it, those decisions as a businessman are different than the creative decisions you make.”
9. “Homosexuality in hip-hop is an extension of homosexuality in the black community. The black community is very, very conservative when it comes to homosexuality, and I don’t mean conservative in the good way, like we’re saving money. I mean very intolerant.”
10. “You have to learn how to harness technology so you can use it for positive stuff without being disconnected from nature.”
11. “If I focus on being an activist and my job is to be a rapper, I’m not going to be as good of a rapper. I need to focus on hip-hop and focus on making the music, so that when the activists come to me and they need my voice to create a platform, then I’ve got enough people listening to me. Not because I’m conscious, but because I’m dope.”
12. “I think all those artists are artists who are appreciated because you believe their words and you appreciate their honesty in their music. If you don’t appreciate the honesty in the music, the beat can be fly as hell but you’ll never give an emcee props.”
13. “You have to know when to be arrogant. You have to when to be humble. You have to know when to be hard and you have to know when to be soft.”
14. “Hip-hop is a vehicle.”
15. “Being called ‘conscious’ is a great thing to be, but it’s the connotations and preconceived notions that come with the buying audience about what conscious music can be.”
16. “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.”
17. “I’m not looking to set a standard… but, I believe I have offered a challenge to others with my work.”
18. “The problem with our role is Americans live in a world of illusion.”
19. “What’s more condescending and corny than someone telling you how much more money they have than you and telling you basically, ‘I don’t care about poor people,’ which is a large part of what you hear of corporate hip-hop on the radio.”
20. “My kids are the most inspiring thing that pushes me. It used to be because they were born, and I had to take care of them. Now it’s because my son raps, and he’s better than me. So now I gotta keep up with him, you know what I’m saying?”
Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Ozy Fusion Fest 2017
