Hip-hop is a beautiful culture. It's inspirational, because it's a culture of survivors. You can create beauty out of nothingness.
Mos DefEverything's got space between it, the planets, trees, your eyes. Your eyes get too close together, it's a whole different world. You can lose perspective.
Mos DefI never had any ambitions of being a movie star or anything like that, but you know, this is nice.
Mos DefI don't have advice for people on how to dress. People should dress based on what they find beautiful. My best advice: Keep your clothes clean.
Mos DefIf it's just fame for the sake of being famous, no one even cares about you - and you don't even care about yourself because you're like, "This is so ridiculous."
Mos DefThere was a time when hip-hop was its own musical principle, aside from sampling. Like the entire Wild Style break is instrumental. Kurtis Blow's earliest stuff was studio musicians playing. Whodini had a real clear sound, things like "five minutes of funk," stuff that you could write really beautiful, lush string and horn arrangements around, stuff that was just music.
Mos Def