Chuck D famous quotes

I came from a mother and father who always made me secure in my beliefs, and that's where the love came from.
-- Chuck D

#Mother #Father #Belief

The best way to boycott is to build your own
-- Chuck D

#Way #Boycott

Burn, Hollywood, burn, I smell a riot goin' on, First they're guilty, now they're gone!
-- Chuck D

#Rap #Smell #Hip Hop

Many have forgotten what we came here for, Never knew or had a clue, so you're on the floor. Just growin' not known' about your past... Now you're lookin' pretty stupid while you're shakin' your ass.
-- Chuck D

#Stupid #Rap #Past

Rap comes from the humble beginnings of rebelling against the status quo. Now, rappers have become the status quo themselves. You can't rebel against the Queen and then become the Queen yourself. I attribute much of the blame to testosterone-male dominance and patriarchy.
-- Chuck D

#Queens #Rap #Humble

I got a letter from the government the other day I opened and read it...it said they were suckers.
-- Chuck D

#Rap #Government #Hip Hop

Being positive is like going up a mountain. Being negative is like sliding down a hill. A lot of times, people want to take the easy way out, because it's basically what they've understood throughout their lives.
-- Chuck D

#People #Being Positive #Mountain

If I can't change the people around me, I change the people around me.
-- Chuck D

#People

Music and art and culture is escapism, and escapism sometimes is healthy for people to get away from reality. The problem is when they stay there.
-- Chuck D

#Art #Reality #People

There are too many leaders anointed because they have a public voice - television, radio, or record, or whatever. That even includes myself. In the past, I'd say, 'Don't anoint me when you can anoint yourself.
-- Chuck D

#Past #Voice #Leader

Downloadable music is the biggest musical phenomenon since the Beatles, and the music industry is slow to come to grips with that.
-- Chuck D

#Musical #Music Is #Music Industry

And when I say it, they get alarmed... 'Cause I'm louder than a bomb.
-- Chuck D

#Rap #Hip Hop #Bombs

No matter what the name, we're all the same pieces in one big chess game.
-- Chuck D

#Rap #Games #Names

Hip-hop is a part of rock & roll because it comes from DJ culture. DJ culture is the embodiment of all genres and all recorded music, if you actually pay attention to it.
-- Chuck D

#Rocks #Hip Hop #Culture

To live a life you love, you must Love the life you live.
-- Chuck D

#Love You

I'm envious of the way that electronic dance music has organised itself. It has been able to understand what it ain't rather than what it is. And I think that slipped away from hip-hop as soon as the DJs lost the majority of the say so in the direction of the music.
-- Chuck D

#Thinking #Hip Hop #Able

Reflect each day on all you have to be grateful for and you will receive more to be grateful for.
-- Chuck D

#Grateful #Each Day #Be Grateful

I think traveling the world has helped to keep Public Enemy alive. We've never solely depended on the United States.
-- Chuck D

#Thinking #Enemy #United States

I think too much of the music industry is for the lawyer and accountant mentality.
-- Chuck D

#Thinking #Too Much #Lawyer

I think right about now we have to beware of marketed Malcolms and Martins. Real people do real things.
-- Chuck D

#Real #Thinking #People

I think the Internet was the saving grace for Public Enemy. Before that, travelling the world saved Public Enemy.
-- Chuck D

#Thinking #Grace #Enemy

These days you can't see who's in cahoots, Cause now the KKK wears three-piece suits.
-- Chuck D

#Rap #Kkk #Hip Hop

Government and culture are two diametrically opposed forces - the one blinds and oppresses, the other uplifts and unites.
-- Chuck D

#Uplifting #Government #Two

You're always going to sound like yourself, but you can make really strong attempts to keep some similarities, but move away from what you did before for popularity's sake.
-- Chuck D

#Strong #Moving #Sound

My daughter's 19. I'm not asking her to develop as an artist. I'm just asking her to develop as a full person, human being.
-- Chuck D

#Daughter #Artist #Asking

Rappers should just be able to perform what they create and satisfy the people that like and love them.
-- Chuck D

#Rapper #People #And Love

I've signed with major labels, and I haven't had any control over the money.
-- Chuck D

#Labels

I'm recording freely, and if I make a song, I release it immediately, so I'm more likely to believe in one song at a time as opposed to albums.
-- Chuck D

#Song #Believe #Albums

My mother went to university, my father didn't. But they are very educated, very wise people. My father went to the military, so he's worldly.
-- Chuck D

#Wise #Mother #Father

Never try to make the same record twice, even when people are screaming for the same sound.
-- Chuck D

#People #Trying #Sound

You should be a person inside the world with knowledge of your terrain. And if you lock yourself into the 2,000-by-3,000-square-mile, lower-48 box of the United States, you're going to be frustrated by its limitations. You gotta think outside the box.
-- Chuck D

#Thinking #Squares #Frustrated

When you travel the world, you have to watch and you have to listen. We're not going to come in to Ireland without an understanding that there's a history that's very sensitive.
-- Chuck D

#Understanding #Watches #World

Excuse us for the news, You might not be amused; But did you know White comes from Black? No need to be confused.
-- Chuck D

#Confused #Rap #White

I never live alone, I never walk alone. My posse's always ready And they're waitin' in my zone.
-- Chuck D

#Rap #Hip Hop #Posse

You can't master time, but you have to work your hardest to manage it.
-- Chuck D

#Masters #Hardest #Manage

The Illuminati is just the evil, 'nameless' people who are behind governments.
-- Chuck D

#Government #People #Evil

Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and when people start getting it confused, that means they need to sit down with some real people.
-- Chuck D

#Confused #Real #Mean

Public Enemy is the security of the hip-hop party.
-- Chuck D

#Party #Hip Hop #Enemy

People aren't going to support an artist just because they have an audio file. They have to feel a real connection.
-- Chuck D

#Real #Artist #People

I'm a multi-tasker. I was down with that stuff before they invented the term.
-- Chuck D

#Stuff #Term

I totally hate when somebody takes a classic and desecrates it. I like Jimmy Page and P. Diddy, but what they did to 'Kashmir' was a debacle.
-- Chuck D

#Hate #Kashmir #Pages

Minds are the real estate of the 21st century.
-- Chuck D

#Real #Mind #Century

Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps
-- Chuck D

#Hero #Stamps #My Hero

DJ culture always made us aware that the best records were going to come from the small shops
-- Chuck D

#Culture #Records #Made

Being called Black in America is the struggle to keep us moving and breathing over bloody water. Being a Nig**r or [Ni**a] without the context of history is like drowning in bloody water, dragging down those yet knowing to swim.
-- Chuck D

#Struggle #Moving #Breathing

Young people are having a hard time with what's reality and what's fantasy these days...We created discussion. It wasn't to create controversy for sale's sake, but rather it was my obligation to use the medium for discussion. Nobody's discussing the grown-up topics; they are faking and fronting.
-- Chuck D

#Hard Times #Reality #People

Don't anoint me when you can anoint yourself.
-- Chuck D

Our freedom of speech is freedom or death, We got to fight the powers that be!
-- Chuck D

#Rap #Fighting #Hip Hop

The immediacy of the technology of the web allows us, as songwriters, to write something very sharp and quick. That has a lot to do with helping a songwriter be more reflective of reality, instead of being in an area where you have to process things. It's the difference between processing fish and catching it in a boat.
-- Chuck D

#Writing #Technology #Reality

All I want is peace and love on this planet. Ain't that how God planned it?
-- Chuck D

#Rap #Hip Hop #And Love

Bass! How low can you go? Death row...what a brother know. Once again, back is the incredible, The rhyme animal, the uncannable "D!" Public Enemy Number One. Five-O said, "Freeze!" and I got numb. Can I tell 'em that I really never had a gun? But it's the wax that the Terminator X spun.
-- Chuck D

#Brother #Rap #Gun

One side of the street is a Church; across the road is a liquor store. Both of 'em keepin us poor.
-- Chuck D

#Interesting #Church #Sides

It's weak to speak and blame somebody else ...When you destroy yourself.
-- Chuck D

#Rap #Hip Hop #Blame

We don't see the people who are doing real things getting enough props. We often see politicians who are everywhere but nowhere at the same ***** time. You know the kind of person: You see them everywhere on television but nowhere in front of your face.
-- Chuck D

#Real #People #Television

Rap is supposed to be about keeping it real and not relinquishing your roots in the community. Without that, it's just posturing. Somebody who claims to speak for the 'hood don't need no private jet.
-- Chuck D

#Real #Rap #Roots

The Internet was a saving grace for promoting and exposing, and even creating. It's a parallel world to the music industry that already exists, and I'm glad to be a part of it.
-- Chuck D

#Creating #Grace #World

What made me want to become a recording artist; I was the first artist that was repeatedly asked by a label to record with them. That label was Def Jam Records.
-- Chuck D

#Artist #Labels #Jam

I was inspired by the classic rock radio of the Seventies. They separated Chuck Berry and the Beatles from the Led Zeppelins and Bostons and Peter Framptons of the time. In many ways, classic rock became bigger than mainstream rock.
-- Chuck D

#Rocks #Boston #Berries

Cause I'm Black and I'm proud I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps
-- Chuck D

#Hero #Hip Hop #Black

I like Rick Ross as a person. I like Jay-Z and Kanye West as people. But I hate the companies that they record for.
-- Chuck D

#Hate #People #Records

I think governments are the cancer of civilization.
-- Chuck D

#Cancer #Thinking #Government

Of course voting is useful. But then again, I don't put a big glow to it. Voting is about as essential as washing yourself. It's something you're supposed to do. Now, you can't go around bragging, expecting to get props because you voted. That's stupid.
-- Chuck D

#Stupid #Voting #Essentials

People are so confused about race and hip-hop that people didn't even consider the Beastie Boys one of the greatest rap groups of all time because they were white.
-- Chuck D

#Confused #Rap #Boys

One of the problems with hip hop is lack of infrastructure and not being able to control its own course. I don't like that hip hop is full of infantile 35-year-olds. Hip hop cannot afford to be lazy.
-- Chuck D

#Years #Hip Hop #Lazy

I spread the message of hope and of unity. That's what gets me up in the morning. I can tell you what is wrong, but I can't tell you how to fix it. I'm a raptivist, not a politician. I deal in hope.
-- Chuck D

#Morning #Unity #Messages

I grew up as a sports fan, and I know that a hall of fame is very different than an award for being the best of the year. It's a nod to the longevity of our accomplishment.
-- Chuck D

#Sports #Awards #Years

I'd rather have a hundred thousand or a million people saying I'm nuts and I'm crazy for my musical choices and what I've said lyrically, than a million people all raising their hand on the first day.
-- Chuck D

#Crazy #Hands #Nuts

You have to wait for people to program you. The only difference is the amount of people that you're going to reach but that's going to even out in the next two or three years anyway. Computers are being bought faster than televisions right now.
-- Chuck D

#Years #Two #Differences

Comin' from the school of hard knocks, Some perpetrate...they drink Clorox. Attack the black, cause I know they lack exact The cold facts, and still they try to Xerox.
-- Chuck D

#Rap #School #Hip Hop

Real people do real things. A collective of a whole bunch of people who do things in their own locale, in their own neighborhoods - the sum is bigger than the parts, and the parts will grow.
-- Chuck D

#Real #People #Bigger