Lupe Fiasco Quotes

We weren't raised Muslim - we were born Muslim. I didn't go to a Muslim school, but it was just the theme song. It was ambient.

When you start creating opinion, and you start creating difference of opinion, you're doing something. People are actually sitting down and critiquing. A lot of the stuff people hate, they really don't. They only look at the outer shell. They don't really get into it.

I love Obama, and I love the fact that it's a black president of the United States of America, but he's not the first black president. Robert Mugabe is a black president ,too, so let's not get to talking about precedents being set.

You need to think about the system that you live in and the comforts that you have. But the comforts that you have that are causing the discomforts of a massive amount of people around the world.

I think that all the silence is worse than all the violence

The men can have a moral compass that is just unshakeable, they can have ethics that run to the core.

My approach is I put God first; I say "God willing" all the time. The only way things will change is with God. So knowing that I can't really change anything, I'm just going to satire it.

Every life is good. This [luxury] doesn't make life. It's a lifestyle. It's a style of life. Style is what you are, but everybody has life. And everybody's life should be good. Some of the happiest people in the world have nothing. Nothing. And they find happiness in being in the world. They wear the world with a smile.

I have people who want to pull me into specific projects in the community based on my music and on the mixtapes. It's like, it's the truth but I'm not trying to preach to you. Because who am I to say what's really right or wrong, or whether what I say is going to change anything? I don't take it too seriously; it's really whimsical.

The murder rate in Chicago is skyrocketing, and you see who's doing it and perpetrating it - they all look like Chief Keef. When it comes to the point that, you know, that kids who are doing the killings, and they're kids 13 to 19 years old, and you can replicate that in New Orleans, you can replicate that in Oakland. All the kids look the same.

If they burn a book, have no worries. The book will feel NO pain so neither should you! True destruction of the Qur'an cannot be done with fire; it is destroyed when we fail to remember & practice its lessons in our daily lives. If this occurs, then it is ANOTHER fire that you should truly be concerned about!

Before my father would open up a karate school in a particular neighborhood, he'd clean up the block - kick all the drug dealers and gang bangers off the block. My father was very clear: 'I've got guns too, and I'll kill you just as much as a rival gang would.' And he meant it. He was a man of many facets and complexities.

Obama came in and gave $700 billion to the bankers off the top as opposed to giving $700 billion to the poor.

I don't really care about the GOPs or the Democratic Party. My point is the people, giving the people truth.

My greatest enemy at one point was myself, and so now once I got over the fear of myself I don't fear any man. I never have.

Hip-hop is just something I actually know how to do. But I always had aspirations to participate in other forms of music.

I don't really get the same kinda romance that I would get from, like, jazz. And even to a lesser extent to rock 'n roll. Rock 'n roll has a romance to it - how can I put it? A very vulgar romance, but still a romance; whereas hip hop has more facade.

That should be the measure of success for everyone. It's not money, it's not fame, it's not celebrity; my index of success is happiness.

Nature only goes so far. Nurture, what you raised on and what you ingest as a youngster, it really affects you when you grow up in really subtle, long drawn-out ways. And to find that, to hear that thing again all those years later and to realize that was the source, it's like, "What else has me twisted?" So now I'm going back to robots and cartoons; I go back to all this to see what got me the way that I am.

True terrorism, you know, weaponized fear. In defense of ourselves, we're fighting - actively fighting something else. But if you're going to fight terrorism, to me, you fight the root causes of terrorism.

With Australian audiences, there's a certain level of education - as far as how much access and exposure they have to music from various genres. So when you do 'Big Day Out' and there are all these different musical acts, you see the same people in your crowd that were there for a completely different artist.

I don't mind payin' for the police and for streets and sanitation, or road work, bridges, trains, food subsidies and welfare. But I don't wanna pay for bombs to fight proxy wars in the middle of nowhere against enemies in the night.

Know the weapons of the weak, kill weakness of the heart and never fall asleep.

A match made in heaven set the fires in hell.

There is no line of demarcation between the amateurs and the pros; everyone is using the same tactics and playing in the same arenas. The only thing that separates them is radio, but the artist doesn't control who goes to radio and who doesn't.

I saw the dudes who would be the gangsta, big-time guys on the block, but would also be dedicated fathers. It was kind of weird to see that dual story that everybody has.

First of all, you are not really that supreme.

Making your moves, paying your dues, chasing the cool.

If you feel comfortable, and you feel happy, and successful at your job, then that's success. You define that as success, then that's success. Success is not a general thing. It's a personal thing. It's a personal attribute.

There are still songs that I'm writing. I like to write. I like to take a long time to do my songs, not even the actual writing process, but conceptualizing, getting into the songs. That's why I stopped doing mixtapes.

Da Pak was a group out of Chicago. It was a put-together group. We actually met for the first time at this showcase. They were like 'Yo, you should do a song together.' So we did. It just so happened that the name of the song was 'Wolf Pak.' They said, 'Y'all should be a group called Da Pak, and here's a record deal.'

Whats the biggest commercial for aggression, sexuality and materialism? What gets pumped into these kids heads? Taking someone elses girl, which is so laissez-faire in hip-hop, will get you killed in the streets, but it doesnt seem to be an issue when you hear it on the radio.

To me, you can't win. You can't win. There's a war in Iraq; there's no way that they're ending that. The war in Afghanistan is still going on. There's no way that's going to end anytime soon. You can complain about it, you can throw rocks at it, but you really have to come to the conclusion that this is a really twisted place sometimes and some stuff you're not going to win.

The story of 'Lasers' is my story. I didn't have to look too far to get subject matter for this record; it was stuff that was happening to me.

The point of Islam is to promote peace.

China is soon to be probably the most powerful nation in the world, but they only making like $10,000 a year, and that's doing it. They're balling on $10,000 a year, and this is the strongest nation? But it's a billion people. The way it breaks down, if you really look at it, it's still built on the poor, on the backs of hundreds of millions of destitute, impoverished farmers that you'll never see. You just see Shanghai and you see Hong Kong.

I do this for the sake of myself. It's a selfish process. I don't really have any expectations from anyone for your comments or your reviews or your previews.

Some people are the greatest people on Earth with good hearts and will get in the studio and make the most negative music in the world for the sake of success. That's what the music business does to you. That's what capitalism does to you.

People see your reviews sometimes, and it's so good that they think I wrote it. And I'm like, "OK, yeah, I wrote it. And I own the company that put it out."

In my fight against terrorism, to me, the biggest terrorist is Obama, and the United States of America.

It feels good, you know. It feels like you're out there, you know, doin' your own thing, know what I'm sayin'? It's like, people can't really compare it to anything, and that kinda feels good. It opens me up to a lot of different arenas, a lot of different type of situations, you know like Tony Hawk will call. You know what I'm sayin'? I can just image if my songs was about shootin' up, and like sellin' cocaine, I doubt Tony Hawk would be callin' you know?

I love her (Lucifer), with all my heart. She said that she would give me greatness, status, placement above the others. A match made in heaven, set the fires in hell. The devil on me. Game got my soul. Momma said beware of what the devil do. Tell'em that your soul's not for sale. Every dream is designed and broadcasted from the masters to the masses.

When you look out into the world and you turn on the news and it's just so dark, it's still there. But it's the battle, it's the struggle with that, and at the same time to recognize that happiness and love and all those things exist as well.

My whole team, it wasn't about putting the album out, it was about getting off the record company and going independent or going to another label. To the point we were like, 'Listen, just take 'Lasers.' You can have whatever percentage off the next ten records I do for the rest of my life. I just do not want to be here anymore.'

World is not designed for you to win; it's designed to be played. It's designed for you to play your position until a certain point, when you get a chance to actually do some good, make a statement, get on your soapbox and say something.

I got into skateboarding when I was like a shorty. It was a toy thing.

I don't like to hear myself sing. So to get comfortable hearing myself sing, I sang in another accent.

The biggest terrorist is Obama.