I'm not an executive. I can do it, I have the mind for it, but there's a life that you have to lead, and you have to give up your creative freedom. That's what I don't want to give up.
KRS-OneI think that hip-hop should be spelled with a capital "H," and as one word. It's the name of our black people culture, and it's the name of our identity and consciousness. I think hip-hop is not a product, but a culture. I think rap is a product, but when hip-hop becomes a product, that's slavery, because you're talking about people's souls. To me, that's the biggest problem.
KRS-OneI think that hip-hop should be spelled with a capital "H," and as one word. It's the name of the culture, and it's the name of the identity and consciousness. I think hip-hop is not a product, but a culture. I think rap is a product, but when hip-hop becomes a product, that's slavery, because you're talking about people's souls.
KRS-OneIt's just hypocrisy on hip-hop's part to cry racial profiling when your race is on TV acting like fools.
KRS-OneThere's a Universe Instrument, where we apply Hip-Hop to astronomy, and we flush out the chemistry of Hip-Hop. We also flushed out the astronomy, to see where Hip-Hop is read in the stars.
KRS-OneI know that I'm freer as a hip-hopper than as an executive. Even as a black man, I enjoy more freedom as a hip-hopper than as a black man. That, s controversial to say, but it's the truth.
KRS-OneThe single most important lesson I learned is that black people are the cause of black people's demise.
KRS-OneI 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. If your music winds up on Napster and you approve of it, then the person downloading your music should at least go to your concert, should at least purchase your songs.
KRS-OneWe [black people] don't respect our elders. Besides artists, we don't respect Frederick Douglass. We don't respect Martin Luther King. You look at every Martin Luther King Boulevard out here, and it's a crack block. That's not because of white people. That's because of black leadership. We just have that problem, and it's something that I am going to spend the rest of my life trying to conquer.
KRS-OneDon't you think it's time we thought about the future? Whether our children are gonna be winners or losers
KRS-OneDeepak Chopra, look at him. He's probably the most successful self-help guru in the world. I don't think he's struggling for any marketing or exposure. You've just got to know where your audience is.
KRS-OneI make intelligence cool. I make spirituality cool. If we can make one's devotion to God cool, then I think I did a great thing. I can rest in peace.
KRS-OneJust black executives have a bias against older artists. We don't respect our elders. That's not because of white people. That's because of black leadership. We just have that problem, and it's something that I am going to spend the rest of my life trying to conquer.
KRS-OneNo [other rappers are on my level], none of them. Here, let me put it like this in the sky, there are a million stars, but when the sun appears, you see none of them. I am the sun.
KRS-OneHip-Hop is being spoken through spirituality... Meaning that you'll be able to listen to it spiritually for yourself.
KRS-OneSo you think that hip-hop had it's start out in Queensbridge, If you popped that junk up in the Bronx you might not live.
KRS-OneHip-hop as a culture itself goes through stages. It grows - it's breathing, living. I've noticed that we usually start off conscious, then we wind up very highly sexual, and then we thug it out. Then things get a little funny again, with comedy and that kind of thing.
KRS-OneI think that all journalists, specifically print journalists, have a responsibility to educate the public. When you handle a culture's intellectual property, like journalists do, you have a responsibility not to tear it down, but to raise it up. The depiction of rap and of hip-hop culture in the media, I think, is one that needs more of a responsible approach from journalists.
KRS-OneThe whole world is conscious. It's just that we become conscious at times, and you become conscious when you lose a parent, or just a loved one, period - a wife, a brother, you know. You wake up and say, "Man, it's real. I don't need this pimp gangster stuff anymore, I need something with a little more substance." And there is marketing for that.
KRS-OneBlack people are just constantly immature in their thinking, undisciplined, and we suffer as a people. This is not about race in the sense that black people got to get something better than whites or Latinos or Asians. This is just basically that we keep complaining about what we don't have and what we can't do, and then, when we get in positions to do stuff, we fight amongst ourselves like savages.
KRS-OneWhen I say hip-hoppers, I mean black, white, Asian, Latino, Chicano, everybody. Everybody. Hip-hop has united all races. Hip-hop has formed a platform for all people, religions, and occupations to meet on something. We all have a platform to meet on now, due to hip-hop. That, to me, is beyond music. That is just a brilliant, brilliant thing.
KRS-OneEducate yourself make your world view bigger, visualize wealth, and put yourself in the picture
KRS-OneIf I were to critique myself - step out of KRS objectively and look at him - I would say that KRS has introduced the concept of being hip-hop, not just doing it. The concept of rap as something we do, while hip-hop is something we live. The concept of living a culture. Don't just look at hip-hop as rap music, see it as a culture.
KRS-OneTrust in God, that's where the crown is at. It's not in what you get, it's what happens after that.
KRS-OneIf you're a conscious rap artist and you're worried about Billboard charts, you're gonna have a problem.
KRS-OneIf the society that we're talking about is a society that starts wars all over the world, degrades indigenous cultures, is misogynistic in itself, if that's the society we're talking about, then it's not a bad thing if hip-hop did degrade that society.
KRS-OneI used to let the olde english 8- suds bubble in the last car of the Franklin Avenue shuttle
KRS-OneHip-hoppers are not interpreting what hip-hop is, and when we do interpret it, we interpret it as something immature, unorganized, and outlaw.
KRS-OneIt's not that you don't make any money doing conscious rap music. You make a lot of money doing this, but if you're greedy and you're not satisfied with $500,000 a year, and you want $2 million a year, then you will suffer as a conscious rap artist.
KRS-One