I think that all the silence is worse than all the violence by Lupe Fiasco

I think that all the silence is worse than all the violence

Lupe Fiasco

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Categorized in : Thinking Silence Violence

I love Obama, and I love the fact that it's a black president of the United States of America, but he's not the first black president. Robert Mugabe is a black president ,too, so let's not get to talking about precedents being set.

black talking america

I think there's a lot of the hip-hop crowd behind Barack Obama because he's a black man. Honestly, I'm rooting for Hillary because race is only going to go so far. All the presidents are men at the end of the day.

race men thinking

I was literally told for 'The Show Goes On' that I shouldn't rap too deep. I shouldn't be too lyrical. It just needs to be something easy on the eyes. Like a record company telling Picasso that we don't need these abstract interpretations of life, where people have to sit down and look at it and break it down.

rap eye people

In Chicago, you have an absence of strong family units, and that absence gets filled by gangs. You have a failure in the school system, after-school programs and other social programs to help keep kids off the streets. Amnesty International speaks to that in some way, by keeping these issues in the forefront.

strong kids school

It definitely wasn't like, 'Hey, I'm going to steal that, and nobody's going to know.' The original 'T.R.O.Y.' came out in 1992, and it was like a 20th anniversary kind of thing. All of those intentions were there for it to be resurrecting a classic for a new generation. I tried to honor it.

hey generations honor

My whole team, it wasn't about putting the album out, it was about getting off the record company and going independent or going to another label. To the point we were like, 'Listen, just take 'Lasers.' You can have whatever percentage off the next ten records I do for the rest of my life. I just do not want to be here anymore.'

lasers independent team

Oh yeah, I'm literally walking through my house now looking down and there are maybe, like, 15 pairs on the floor. For real. Real talk. It's just simplicity. They're something I wear every day. Before I got a deal with them, I was wearing some type of Vans all the time. I would just order them by the box, like, 10 at a time.

simplicity real order

The murder rate in Chicago is skyrocketing, and you see who's doing it and perpetrating it - they all look like Chief Keef. When it comes to the point that, you know, that kids who are doing the killings, and they're kids 13 to 19 years old, and you can replicate that in New Orleans, you can replicate that in Oakland. All the kids look the same.

oakland kids years

I know what tablas sound like, because my father played a lot of... by Lupe Fiasco

I know what tablas sound like, because my father played a lot of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.

sound knows father

What I've learned is not to take anybody's advice. If you rely solely on your fans, it sets you up for the downfall

labels fans advice

This nation was founded by rebels and revolutionaries, and its flags were carried across the battlefields by people who were very, very against the status quo and who questioned and criticized.

rebel flags people

The murder rate in Chicago is skyrocketing and you see who's doing it and perpetrating it, they all look like Chief Keef.

oakland chicago looks

With Australian audiences, there's a certain level of education - as far as how much access and exposure they have to music from various genres. So when you do 'Big Day Out' and there are all these different musical acts, you see the same people in your crowd that were there for a completely different artist.

musical artist people

Sand camouflage army men by Lupe Fiasco

Sand camouflage army men

car army men

I have yet to see someone attack Obama over his report card. A lot of people I talk to from both sides of the fence are like, 'Well, what about this economy? What about these incidents?' There are still no answers except time, but time is the answer for everything.

answers cards people

You can't control it once you turn it into the label, so there's the expectation that it'll leak a week before the album comes out. That's the world we live in.

albums labels expectations

I grew up in the 'hood around prostitutes, drug dealers, killers, and gangbangers, but I also grew up juxtaposed: On the doorknob outside of our apartment, there was blood from some guy who got shot; but inside, there was National Geographic magazines and encyclopedias and a little library bookshelf situation.

drug guy blood

I don't like to hear myself sing. So to get comfortable hearing myself sing, I sang in another accent.

accents hearing comfortable

Hip-hop is just something I actually know how to do. But I always had aspirations to participate in other forms of music.

hips hip-hop form

If you feel comfortable, and you feel happy, and successful at your job, then that's success. You define that as success, then that's success. Success is not a general thing. It's a personal thing. It's a personal attribute.

attributes successful jobs