When you have a voice and a platform and you know better, it becomes your moral obligation to support that community. And by extension, you're supporting your family.
Talib KweliBy the time you get into other kinds of music - R&B, country, or whatever - it becomes something that's romantic. It becomes something unattainable. Never-ending undying love. And in hip hop, we're still taking direct inspiration.
Talib KweliI donโt think that early hip hop stood out to be a social critique. A lot of fans of mine think that hip hopโs ultimate responsibility is to critique social structures.
Talib KweliBut Rawkus is integral to what I do, because the cats who started Rawkus are the first ones who really saw my vision, and gave me a platform to get it out there, so I'm definitely totally grateful for that.
Talib KweliWhat else is stop and frisk? These neighborhoods are unsafe not because there's not enough cops illegally frisking people. They're not safe because of economic conditions. They're not safe because of all types of things in the government that people like Mike Bloomberg and Ray Kelly should be looking to fix instead of randomly searching kids in the hood. If you go to a college campus and you do stop and frisk, you're going to find a lot of drugs there, too.
Talib Kweli