The ones that sell the most aren't the ones that are remembered.
— KRS-One
Ask any rapper or singer what artist they are an expert on. What artist are they looking to emulate, and really, what artist is the one person they are an expert on? You see, if you want any kind of longevity, if you want any kind of legacy, you need to know what ancestral line you are from.
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.
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.
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.
When I was about 15 years old, I began to embark on an MC career but also to study philosophy with an emphasis on theology.
When I wake up in the morning, do I think I'm a role model? Yes. I'm not trying to have a pristine image, because a real role model shows you to the good and ugly.
The Temple of HipHop has declared HipHop its own religion. We believe HipHop is divine. HipHop proves the existence of God.
Hate is indeed self-destructive, and this is what real Hip Hop must avoid at all cost.
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.
I'm not a fan of public school at all; I think it's one of the greatest catastrophes of American history.
What is American education? What should our students be taught? Is hip-hop something that is worthwhile and useful for students to learn? Of course, if you're learning it from KRS-One, I would say yes.
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!
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.
I think music should be free. I think all communication should be free. I think people should respect artists, and there should be a certain respect for artists who give their music away for free.
The single most important lesson I learned is that black people are the cause of black people's demise.
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.
I'm hoping to make the kind of difference in my lifetime that allows me to be remembered positively.
There was no hip-hop before Afrika Bambaataa.
If the radio ever played my music, I would sue them. And they know it, which is why they don't play my music.
Before I came out, there was no such thing as a black conciousness movement. Kids on the street didn't know who Malcom X or Martin Luther King was until rap let them know.
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 don't see enough peace talk in society.
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.
Rap is something you live; hip hop is something you do.
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.
I honestly now know that I'm the physical embodiment of hip-hop on earth. That's my only purpose here on earth is to keep the culture together long enough for it to remain everything that we thought it could be when I was coming up.
In the future, hip-hop is going to be called American folklore.
Many of us were raised without a father, and the subject of deadbeat dads hits home in a lot of areas. Most of all, doing a song about being a father to your daughter flies straight in the face of the argument that says hip-hop is misogynistic.
When you do an album, you don't get to test an album live.
You have to be educated to vote.
I think that Napster is the greatest invention since sliced bread. Napster, to me, is liberation and freedom for artists.
When you seek to do something, if you don't know the whole game plan, you're usually going to work against yourself.
Every ghetto kid that walks the earth can see something in KRS-One that reminds him of himself.
Radio has always been just disgusting.
I was born in Hip Hop. That's all I ever needed.
I don't even want my music on mainstream radio. They don't deserve it. They destroy careers.
When rap music needed to have a teacher, I became it.
There's no distinction. A teacher is a preacher. The teachers in public schools are preachers, and the preachers in church are teachers.
For me, I see myself as a role model because, everything I do, there is a person somewhere who needs to hear me spread a message of non-violent conflict resolution.
I find it fascinating how hip hop as a culture mirrors every mythology from the beginning of mythology. The concept of the single mother and child - the Madonna concept. Hip-hoppers were raised in that.
Only love is consistent because only love is unconditional.
There is no forgiveness, justice, or healing on any level when hate is involved.
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.
If you don't know hip-hop, at least a little bit of it, you can't even call yourself an American.
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.
It seems like racism in the United States is overflowing.
Bring the arts back, and treat it with respect.
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.
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.
