Freedom is not something you're even trying to fight for; you are free. Go. Make sure you live free every day.
— Killer Mike
I prefer a real villain to a false hero.
I grew up working class in Atlanta.
I maintain hope that this country can be what it's supposed to be.
I shouldn't have to be preparing my children that the world is going to be unfair to them for the rest of their lives.
A lot of times, elections are lost, and the hope of the public is lost because they don't turn out.
I'm not going to stop being who I am.
I just like cars, period. I can find something to like about pretty much any car. I've had as much fun whipping around Italy in a little Mini Cooper as I've had whipping through Miami in a Bentley GT.
I was raised a black child in the South, where you're indoctrinated into a religion that an oppressor gave you.
I never stop reading. I read everything, and I read every day. If you never read anything, be curious. Curiosity is the true foundation of education, reading things that we've factually already agreed on, and I love reading books. With that said, it's more important that you ask the question 'why.'
If we could figure out ways for kids to exit college without having the burden of debt, what we have really figured out is how to create a more fertile breeding ground for people who can think innovatively and progress us as a species.
The older I get, the more of an anarchist I become, and I don't mean in a punk rock way.
My grandmother had been a part of the civil rights movement.
You do not fly the flags of losers over the winner's country.
I like the New York style of funk, the California style of funk, but the South I never felt like - and Atlanta particularly - got the credit for taking their lessons and progressing on it.
The best advice that I've gotten from Nas is honestly to just be me and to keep staying true to myself. It took me a long time to figure out how to pop, but then, when you get famous, people are kind of like, 'Oh, well, we don't want as much of you.'
No Child Left Behind left a lot of kids behind.
I've been a music fan all my life, and you know the difference when the musicians care.
I've been watching wrestling since I was three years old.
I don't let people talk bad about Rick Ross around me. Like, you can't do it. He owns - I've heard a legend - 30 Wing Stops in the areas he grew up near. You can never say anything about him. If that represents ten jobs per place, that's 310 jobs provided.
I'm a man's man.
My hair is dry. A lot of shampoos and greasers don't work with me, and so I started playing around with a chemist on a product that'll work with me.
In my 20s, I was just angry.
I'm a black man who grew up in America. I'm a father of four children. They don't all have the same mother. I own a business.
America has done a great job making brutally fast, stripped-down cars.
I write in the booth and memorize in rehearsals.
My biggest failure was trying to start and run a music label. The music industry was dying, and I wasn't ready to help other people the way that they needed to be helped. I was trying to, and I was stifling myself with it.
Bernie Sanders is the only politician who, consistently for 50 years, has taken that social justice platform into politics.
I've been a sinner and a saint. If you've been a saint all your life, it's pretty easy to sleep at night. If you've been a sinner, you're just as comfortable in it.
An army took on the Union; an army lost. That nation, the Confederate States, lost. And if - that flag - in terms of publicly or state-sponsored things, or local or county or city-sponsored things - should be forever wiped from the memory, because that side lost.
I'm a student of Ice Cube and Scarface, which means the stuff I rap about is not radio-friendly, and it's very opinionated. and it's very much from the perspective of a black man in America, and our opinion ain't always popular when we have a political opinion.
A lot of time, when you're poor and you ain't got but 15, 20 bucks in your pocket - if you can't change your shoes, you can change your look with a haircut.
Nas is truly one of the greatest lyricists to ever come out of Queens, which has produced more great MCs than any other borough. He's one of the greatest MCs of my lifetime and in the world. He's also a friend.
I believe in smart people.
Jake 'The Snake' Roberts of Stone Mountain, Georgia, was the darkest! I mean, he could've been a movie villain, he was so intense! He also had the hardest finishing move of all time, the DDT.
I tell people I live in Atlanta. Georgia's outside of Atlanta, absolutely. But my family's from the very rural south. My family's from Tuskegee, Alabama. And they're from Eatonton, Georgia. Places like Greenwood, Georgia, my family is from... so I've seen it both ways.
You a role model by way of someone will model after your role. They'll model themselves after what they perceive is success. That doesn't mean they take your morality and virtue seriously. They want what you want, and they're willing to do what you do to get it.
I'm an alpha male.
I'm trying to get more into television and film. I know, like, a million models and rappers have said that, but I actually enjoy voiceover and acting in particular.
I'm not going to restrict myself as an artist.
I used to have go-karts and mopeds and motorcycles when I was a kid. Then my grandpa let me drive a real car at about 13 or 14 and I just... I never cared about bikes again after that.
For me, muscle cars are a tribute to American ingenuity.
Rap, to me, is communal. It's something you do with your friends. So becoming a member of a group was the dream.
A lot of times, our greatest minds are locked into a 9-5 job.
We should be led by principles and morals and not by men.
The fact that I'm in a group that inspires others artists is just heaven to me.
I have white friends who have the Confederate flag on their license plates, and I have no issue with that if they see that as a matter of heritage. But I do not think it should ever fly over a state, city, county building, or school, for the simple reason that it represents secession from the Union.
My mom had did a wonderful job of giving me two great dads: I had a biological and non-biological dad.
I think all politics is local.
Rap is supposed to scare soccer moms.
