The older I get, the more of an anarchist I become, and I don't mean in a punk rock way.
Being a black rapper is like being a Southern, socialite woman: You're always worried about appearances.
Bernie Sanders has done a great job of, social media black kids know about him. Young black people progressives know about him. Through barbershops and barbershop tour that we have been on, we hit three barbershops a day. People know about him.
I would say is that kids know about Bernie Sanders and they`re off the radar.In the same way kids knew about Twitter before their parents did.
I learned to fly planes at fifteen years old because one of my teachers thought I'd be a better pilot than rapper.
I would rather have a candidate that`s cohesive in bringing people together from different ethnic backgrounds but around the same policy than I would a politician that jumps and stumps in different rooms and has a different story every time.
I`m lucky in that in my character in hip hop is me. I`m Michael Render. My character is Killer Mike. But the truth that I sing in my raps align themselves with the policy of Bernie Sanders.
The futile and exhausting existence of a purgatory-like law enforcement system.
When Bernie Sanders came along, and I liked his tweets and I read more about him, researched him more, I decided I like him and his policy, even more than just I like another guy in the Democratic Party, I really believed in it. And when you believe in something, you get out and work for it.
Will I die slain like my King by a terrorist? Will my woman be Coretta, take my name and cherish it? Or will she Jackie O., drop the Kennedy, remarry it?
My focus is always on the conditions that create social problems, not just a particular person.
With each new album: I need to kill the last version of me.
You'll always see me at a political rally and the black strip club; I'm gonna represent smoking weed and supporting Trayvon Martin on my record, because I'm a whole man.
I rap when I'm rich. I rap when I'm broke. I rap when I'm bullshit in the street. I rap about only having one woman now. If you can look at a continuum of my career, it's been an evolution of a real dude. So when I say I take my wife to the strip club, we're there, at the five-dollar joint. More than anything, I want people to take away that I'm not mainstream act.
I've been a sinner and a saint. If you've been a saint all your life, it's pretty easy to sleep at night. If you've been a sinner, you're just as comfortable in it. I've walked both sides of the fence, and there are times I can't sleep and I wake the engineer up and get it out of me. But it usually doesn't pour all the way out. I have to come back and have the conversation that you usually try not to have with yourself. That's how it gets resolved.
I don't think I'm more politically-based as much as socially-based.
I can't expect rappers to be politicized when Americans are not socially motivated enough to care about their own lives and public policy as much as they were even 20 years ago. But I'm compelled to make the music I make regardless.
The freedom of speech and the freedom of press, it's just precious man, it really is.
She [Hillary Clinton] knows the people well. I think there is - you know, also talking about breaking down barriers and talking about that, whether we`re talking about that in economic terms. I mean, she`s the only person who has been out there talking about white privilege and talking about sort of the intersectionality of some of these issues.
I think the way the country has changed in part because of the presidency of Barack Obama, I think in part because of what we`ve - the violence that we have seen on our cell phones and our TV sets over the last couple of years. I think Black Lives Matter has helped to force these issues. Women like Sabrina Fulton. We`re having a different conversation in this country right now about race and what it means to really understand your experience is and my experience is.
I would challenge more hip hop artists that are rapping about what it`s like to be real and the social ills that we face, if you aren`t backing Bernie Sanders, I have to question your credibility in terms of do you mean the songs you`re writing.
When you talking about funk music you just talking about a collage of a lot of different types of music. They used strings, they had brass, they had vocalist.
I have a 20-year-old son, I have a 12-year-old son and I'm so afraid for them.
I'm not one of those artists who doubts that they made dope-ass records. From the first record to now, each record has gotten better. I started dope, so I've just gotten doper and doper and dopest and super dope.
It's drones over Brooklyn, you blink, you could get tooken, And now you're understanding the definition of 'Crooklyn.' Pigs on parade, but bacon fryin' and cookin', Cause kids' tired of dyin' and walkin' round like they shooken.
