Chuck D Quotes - Page 4

Music should be some kind of nourishment.

Oh, America is slipping away from the rest of the consciousness of the planet - slipping away.

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

Where else can you go with respect to the work, lyrics, and message of the music? If you are past high school age, you can get by with saying very little the first or second time around. However, after a while you know you are going to have to say something beyond high school stuff.

My advice to young people is ask older people questions and don't be afraid.

Alternative spaces, independent media, satellite, these all provide some tools by which we can work more independently and deal more directly with communities we hope to reach. Distribution is key, and finding alternative ways to do that with new media is critical.

It ain't this big I, little You. Music is to be shared. Music is not a hustle. [Hip hop's become] cultural stripmining [by the major labels]. Some people get into this music to make a killing but music is a way to make a living.

I tell each artist they have to grow toward a revenue stream.

Someone like Jay-Z does have a timeless quality, but it's much different than ours. You can look back at something like "At the Hop" by Danny and the Juniors or the music that was on American Bandstand in the 1950s-'60s.

I wanna go to the clubs and actually have a good time too, but at the same time, when the party's over, I have to go back to the real world and try to figure out who I am.

I think hip hop should be a living word. And what I mean by the living word is like yo, you gotta have the words that provide life.

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.

Once you think bigger than yourself then the cause becomes the issue if you think on a higher plain you can come together to work on our problems.

Slavery was incredibly prosperous for some people, at that time. It was not a bad business plan, but it was terrible and inhumane. But as a business it worked.

Your closest and your most dedicated fans will be your ultimate test. They will test you.

Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps

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.

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

I have to be conscious of what I'm sayin' because people are gonna come at me about this sh*t.

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.

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

If they can send you to war at 18, maybe it's beneficial for some people to think that most of us gotta go to war for our own existence.

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.

I always remain optimistic. There are three levels of music production: the majors, indies, and what I call "inties," music distributed via the Internet. The Internet is one area that I have used pretty effectively to break free of corporate control.

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.