Kind: captions
Language: en
if you were going to write the playbook
for people coming up behind you about
how to become yourself i think is the
most interesting way to ask it so not
necessarily just how to become a legend
in hip-hop but
what path should people walk if they
want to discover and define who they're
going to become i think it's about your
definition of success and in this
capitalist system and in a system where
whoever has the most toys wins
the our
definition of success too often is
whoever has the most toys wins whoever
is the most pop and wins whoever has the
most likes on instagram wins and i think
we have to change our definition of
success for me success is doing what you
love for a living it doesn't mean you're
rich doesn't mean you're famous it
doesn't mean you'll never struggle again
it just means doing what you love for a
living and if that's the metric
then that's how you get successful and
the closer you get to doing what you
love or being yourself for a living the
more successful you get
[Music]
hey everybody welcome to impact theory
today's guest is one of the most
legendary lyricists in the history of
hip-hop jay-z famously said if skills
could be sold lyrically this is the man
he would be one of the most socially
aware and politically insightful rappers
ever to hold a mic he's remained a fresh
and relevant voice for more than 20
years he's collaborated with some of the
biggest names in the game including
kanye west most deaf pharrell williams
just blaze and many others
internationally recognized for both his
lyrical prowess and insane work ethic he
tours roughly 250 days a year and has
put out not only an astonishing eight
solo albums but he's also created some
of the most genre-defining
collaborations of his generation
including black star with most deaf and
reflection eternal with renowned rapper
producer high tech
not one to be beholden to anyone else he
also founded javadi media a company
built from the ground up to be a media
powerhouse that fosters and promotes
music films and books for not only
himself but other like-minded
independent thinkers and doers
so please help me in welcoming the man
who is an integral part of the very
fabric of hip-hop culture and artistry
the activist and intellectual monolith
to lib quality
[Applause]
well earned i assure you man looking at
where you sit in the pantheon of hip-hop
is really extraordinary and the fact
that you've been doing it for so long
with a voice that is not only unique but
incredibly truthful to who you are and
and what feels like to me where you want
the world to go
i think is really really interesting and
so
yeah for sure man the the thing that i
am dying to ask is watching you create
yourself and become somebody is
is amazing how do you think about that
act of becoming the person you want to
be the act of self-creation
it seems like it feels to me in both
your activism and your music that you're
encouraging people to be a better
version of themselves and so how do you
think about that
um
i said that's an interesting question i
um
try to visualize
i don't know if that's visualization
because visualization is seeing things
that haven't happened yet but i try to
often put myself in the mind state of a
younger me
and uh
20 years ago i just wanted to rap
i just wanted other rappers to be like
he's nice
that's really all it's about like when i
read jay-z's book
um
he talks about
how the raps led to everything he's like
you know i'm seen as a billionaire i'm
seen as a businessman and internet but
for me it was all really about those
bars and and that's something that
resonated with me and then when i was
hearing you run down the things i've
done i was like
who the [ __ ] is that guy
you know like i was like that that the
person you just described i see myself
sometimes is outside of that because i
don't take stock of it um i'm just
trying to rap good and the things even
my business moves have
been made
so that i could be a better rapper i had
no
intentions of owning a label it's not my
focus at all but that's just the
smartest efficient way for me to be the
best rapper i could be it's really
interesting to me that
people like you they meet that obstacle
of the industry is not it's not the way
you want it to be for sure and maybe
isn't allowing you to move in the way
that you want to move so rather than
back off which i think is is the almost
universal response to that obstacle is
to create something yourself where'd you
get that tenacity and the guts to say
well [ __ ] it i'm going to do it my way
well one for my parents my parents are
are hard workers
i come from a very hard working family
and you know i'm not i'm not a
conservative i'm not a pull yourself up
by the bootstraps guy i understand
how people are marginalized and why
they're marginalized i understand
systems of oppression but i also
understand hard work and i understand
the rewards of hard work and i
understand that the reason why i value
hard work is because i was blessed to be
born into a household that values hard
work a lot of people just don't value
hard work because they've never seen it
that's not a judgment that's just an
observation
and i just think you know
it's the value of hard work and it's
also being ambitious and just wanting
this more than anybody you know i i want
because i can't think of anything else
that i i'd rather be you know um i ran
into just recently i just ran into diddy
walking i was i was walking out of a
party he was walking into a party and um
i was just like man this guy is always
in the place to be um he's never been
the best rapper he's never been a
producer at all but he can still do a
tour he could still go on tour and and
and perform bangers perform hip-hop
classics that are in in his catalog
not because he's a great rapper but
because he wanted to be on a stage more
than most people so you're right most
people run the opposite direction i try
to run it towards the challenge
one thing that you've said that i think
is really really interesting i think you
were speaking about young yachty you
said you have to separate the moves from
the the performer and i thought that was
really interesting what do you mean by
that like how can somebody move in a way
that you respect um even if you're not
into the music um i don't know too much
about little yachty um you know i like a
couple of his songs i don't know how his
business moves i think what you're
referring to i've said something similar
similar to that
uh about soulja boy
um
who you know this is a guy
and someone could correct me if i'm
wrong when they see this but you know
for i think he came into the game sort
of um manipulating the system there were
music platforms where you you know you
go and listen to justin timberlake you
click justin timberlake you click 50
cent you get soulja boy you know soulja
boy
learned at a very young age 15 16 16
years old how to go viral in an era
where going viral became the premium
thing and so even now you got soulja boy
out here talking about he doing
interviews talking about i i had the
greatest 2018
and everybody's like
no you didn't
you said
but that doesn't matter
he's dealing with a post-truth he's
dealing with it's not whether or not
what i'm saying is accurate
it's not important whether or not you
click on 57 actually get 50 is not
important i'm going viral regardless
you're going to be talking about me
regardless um to the point where he got
other viral youtube people wanting to
fight him you know just so they could go
viral you know um
that part of it when this industry moved
to a place where it's like oh no it's
all about going viral
i look at the people like the soldier
boys and i learn from them whether i
like their music or not i mean i look at
artistry as a as a fraternity i look at
it as we're all brothers and sisters in
this together i know how hard it is to
write one good lyric
so if you can make one good song
i'm giving you all the props in the
world you don't got to be the great you
have to be rakim
for me to give you respect if you are
creative i like soulja boy hop up out to
bed
i like that song you know zan i like the
video when he jumps out the bed it's
funny um but yeah i like the one he did
with drake but i like the jay z and j
electronica conversion better we made it
um yeah his music's not for me and it's
not supposed to be for me his music's
for for kids that are more his age um
what he was able to do in the business
i looked at that as inspiration for me
as a legacy artist to say well how do
young people move in this space where
lyrics don't matter and uh to label you
on don't matter um how do you get
yourself heard because the onus is on me
as an artist the owners is not on the
consumer i could sit there and complain
about how the radio's whack and how no
one buys real [ __ ] this and that that's
that's
uh that's meaningless that's pointless
to do that the onus is on me to figure
out
inside or outside the industry how do i
get my music to the people who want to
hear it
yeah i've heard you talk about that
before and i find that pretty powerful
the notion of um and i'll use my own
words but the notion of deal with the
world the way that it is not the way you
wish it were and that doesn't mean that
you don't try to move that's interesting
that's interesting because one of my
favorite quotes is hakeem that's you're
exactly right that's that's exactly what
i just described but hakeem arabi
is a poet and a writer and a publisher
and maoji and essentially he was he's he
said that the measure of an artist is
not someone who could just tell you how
the world is right now but could tell
you what the world c could potentially
be like and i truly believe that i truly
believe that even your most emo
depressed artist is an optimist at heart
you have to be to create art why would
you want to put something beautiful in
the world unless you had some sort of
optimism um and so
what i'm what i think you said about me
was describing
me as a tactician or describing my
business strategy but i have to separate
that from how i make the art
you know because if i make the art in
that way the art is going to suffer yeah
i looking at you and i think the reason
i was drawn to that comment in you is
for me watching you move and watching
your music there does seem to be a an
awareness of both an awareness of how to
move through the world how to become
independent how to create your own label
how to be a touring artist not worrying
so much about going viral and to make a
pretty extraordinary living to not have
a boss i mean there's just a whole lot
of incredible things that go along with
that and the first moment in your story
where i saw okay this is a guy with
self-awareness who is making moves
meaning there's cognition behind the
choices that he's doing so
ninth grade you get bounced out of
school for basically [ __ ] around as
far as i can tell you find hip hop you
go all in you're not really worried
about school your parents send you to a
boarding school
and
the i think the sort of typical
narrative in that is we'll get bounced
out of boarding school as well but you
don't
and what was your logic behind i'm now
going to get on a path that's going to
take me where i want to go
um
i don't think i was thinking that far
ahead of it i was you're correct to say
i was really
becoming invested in hip-hop in a very
very passionate almost obsessive way
before that i was passionate obsessed
about baseball
and i was a star baseball player in park
slope brooklyn
when i went to border school it was a
different level of competition and i was
a new kid there so i didn't get on the i
had to play jv for a second which
i didn't think i belonged on jv
and then when i got to varsity
i found you know i was just i wasn't
treated seriously that was it was a
basketball school there was like seven
black kids there
six of them that were there to play
basketball
i was
i was not there to play basketball so
they didn't really give a [ __ ] about the
baseball team and so they didn't you
know i just wasn't taken seriously as a
baseball player and i found myself
getting bored and really just wanting to
be in my room listening to de la soul
records and like counting the seconds
like
when is baseball practice gonna be over
so i can go and that's when i realized
that i really loved hip-hop more than
baseball at that point in my life
when i got to cheshire academy
i excelled at it because it was very
easy
it's 100 and 230 kids in the school
and academically i was just i was i feel
like i was smarter than teachers
and
my cultural experience gave me a leg up
on a lot of the students i i'm a kid
black kid from brooklyn new york so i'm
like i'm getting shot at and having
rocks thrown at me from local skinheads
but i'm also like the most popular kid
in the school you know i'm saying
because i know the new fresh hip-hop you
know so it was like um
i was able i learned what i learned in
that school
was how to maneuver and polite complicit
white society
and what my blackness really represented
and i learned that
if you
make yourself indispensable to the
situation that the rules do not apply to
you at all because it got to the point
where i was captain of the debate club
and the blue key society and i ran the
yearbook and i i
directed all the plays so even when i
[ __ ] up
instead of me getting punished the way
some of the other white kids would they
would come and have a talk with me or
they would have me see like a black
guidance counselor or you know they were
trying to do everything they could to
keep me there because i'd made myself
indispensable to the situation
i love that so how do you advise people
to become indispensable like how does
one learn to do that that's an
interesting question i never thought
about
how to make yourself indispensable
i guess in hip hop
i've done it by being closest to myself
naming myself talib quali um
my style is loquacious and this wordy is
because when i first started rapping i
was rapping
i was uh had composition notebooks full
of rhymes and i was trying to fit the
rhymes to the beats i learned later how
to write to the beat but my style
developed from
me trying to fit words where they didn't
belong and there was a lot of early
criticism of my rap style i was like
he's all over the place he goes off beat
he's too wordy but that's what made my
style unique now no one could do it now
20 years later that style is what helped
me
to do this so i i guess my answer would
be get as close to
yourself and your self-expression as you
can
offer the world something that is unique
to you that no one else has to offer
i think that is arguably the world's
best advice what you're asking people to
do though is be insanely brave and
insightful so now as you begin to piece
through how you got there and admittedly
like diving into your world there's one
thing about you that i find really
interesting there's just something
burning inside of you and sometimes it
expresses as this creative almost
epiphany like for the listener like
hearing you go through this stuff like
the manifesto and hearing like how
thoughtful you're thinking about things
it gives epiphanies and other people
and
what i want to know is
how do you develop the bravery to
be who you are to really listen to
yourself but also at the same time it's
clear you've educated the [ __ ] out of
yourself and your family is so deeply
invested into education so
i i don't know how you feel about this
but i really feel like what makes us
unique is not necessarily original
thoughts what makes us unique is our the
way we synthesize information so if you
and i read the same 10 books we're going
to walk away different people we won't
walk away the same person because we do
something different with that
information most people
they want they're they're taking in
external information so they can
assimilate right and so what i want to
know is how did you take it in and say
i mean was there no awareness that this
is going to make my life harder by not
assimilating um
no i mean i think it's um
first it starts in the home
you know i come from parents who are
active in sort of political and activist
discussions and that's why they named me
talib kwali and they named my brother uh
jamal kwame
um
that in itself is a challenge to society
um
when i was a younger young man like a
kid
i recall teachers grown ass teachers
giving up immediately on my name
like you know you're you're you're in
fifth grade for the first time and the
teachers reading the names and and they
get to my name and my name is t-a-l-i-b
and those are
letters in the english alphabet if you
put them together they form things that
you can make sounds with your mouth
to say right but people are used to only
saying things they've seen before
so they see a name and what was looking
like an exotic muslim name to them at
the time and at you know these are
people who were paid to educate people
or paid to be authorities over children
and all common sense goes out the window
and it's how do you pronounce this top
bill at but how do you it's like
at least attempt i'm saying like um but
the idea that we have in black
communities that if you name your child
a black name or african name or muslim
name is going to make it harder for them
to get a job um this is something that's
very prevalent that's something i
remember my parents getting critiqued
for and something i remember people
saying to me like oh you have a hard
name that's something i became very very
aware of very early in my life that
oh there's something different about how
i've been named and so it's made me move
different
i can't be no crackhead named tyler
quality you know i'm saying like the
name is it means seeker of truth and
knowledge so just by how my parents
named me
set me on a path to wanting to live up
to that name so that's really powerful
so looking at the hip-hop game looking
at how much money there is to be made
in maybe not necessarily throwing the
rock and hiding your hand but certainly
in drifting away from who you are
naturally i mean jay-z himself said i
dumbed down from my audience and doubled
my dollars they criticized me for it but
they all yell holler it's like that that
[ __ ] line resonated with me for sure
as an up-and-coming entrepreneur i was
like [ __ ] yeah like at some point you
have to take your audience into
consideration but then as you get into
the space that i'm in now where you're
sitting in front of a [ __ ] camera and
you're talking about who you are for
real then it's like oh god we're getting
into waters right this [ __ ] is not going
to be popular but it's [ __ ] true it's
like when russell simmons says every
billionaire i know is depressed and
miserable
you know um jay-z's very interesting
example because i'm looking at jay-z now
and jay-z has grown out his dreads and
navy wears these fancy bandanas around
his head with the dreads and i look at
this picture to jay-z
and i'm like that's exactly how i wore
my hair when i was in high school
jay-z looks like high school me and it's
interesting to me because i've always
said as a fan of jay-z
before he said my name on a record i was
always like
yo jay-z wraps the way he raps because
he's got to get the fourth quarter
profits up for rockefeller at the end at
the end of the fiscal year and the other
artists ain't gonna bring it all in with
all due respect to beanie siegel and
memphis blink and all these wonderful
artists they had they weren't doing the
jay-z numbers so at the end of the day
jay-z kind of for years had had to drop
a record just to keep the label popping
and i was like man what is jc going to
rap about when he doesn't have to have
the label popping and the answer is he's
going to rap about tyler quality and the
answer is he's going to rap about his
baby blue and the answer is he going to
rap about black economics he's going to
rap about how much he's in love with
beyonce he's gonna rap about he gonna do
documentaries about uh you know people
who are who died in rikers island he
gonna you know he gonna buy nfc hustle
albums that's that's who jay-z has grown
into being um
and it's been interesting for me to
watch jay-z though is the exception to
the rule not the rule the rule is you
have to make a choice the rule is you
either be a hustler or you be an artist
and really should be a businessman an
artist jay-z is the rare exception that
his talents as an artist
are equal to his talents as a
businessman
i am not that you're saying
i may be
maybe and subjective but i may be more
of a talented artist to jay-z maybe
i'm damn sure not more of a talented
businessman to him but he like his he's
man he's so good as a rapper like i
don't have like he's he's jehovah he's
the god emcee after rock him you know
he's like
jay-z is is my top five is a revolving
door but jay-z
always kind of holds the slot in my top
five um
and as a businessman
it's like equal
um
but
yeah i think that's why jay-z is such
the perfect example
for these conversations around business
of hip-hop all right you ready for a
thought exercise sure this will be
interesting um let's say that you're
going to live forever you still have to
make money though but you are going to
live forever no two ways about it um how
would that change your life like what
would you focus on would you reinvent
yourself as a hip-hop artist and take
over that game would it be more activism
like you you now don't have to worry
about ever running out of time
well time is our most precious commodity
right
um
i think i would walk to earth like kung
fu
that is a very unexpected answer i'm
super [ __ ] intrigued
why
it seems to me that connecting with
other other human beings is is true
happiness um assata shakur talks about
in her book the hardest thing about
solitary confinement which she was in
for seven years or so is not having
human touch and how like the first time
she touched someone
after coming out of solitary confinement
how that feeling was sort of too a
static uh uh you know
to sort of describe as like
our connection is like
we need each other
we need
camaraderie we need
communion we need to be around and
engage with other human beings or else
we have no purpose in living and so if i
had all the time in the world man i feel
like i would walk around and get to know
communities i've been blessed to travel
the world up into
you know dozens of countries
most of them i haven't had a chance to
see because i'm
shuttled into a venue
where i'm being paid to be in front of
people who
love to see me
and that experience is all about me and
then i'm shuttled to the next city to
have that same experience so it's not
i'm not seeing
these places um the older i get like i
tour more than any rapper but what
what's starting to happen now as a
touring rapper in my 40s is is when i
book gigs i'll be booking like two or
three days in a city like i'm trying to
book like you know if i
now like i book a gig and immediately
i'm looking at who got the hot tub who
got to where is the resort in the area
like i'm looking at it as an excuse to
stay at a resort somewhere like that's
that's what i do when i book geeks now
because what you know we'll stay in that
resort is not quite connecting with the
people that's more self-care um but even
though i'm staying at the resort
it gives me a chance to be in the city
for a few days and i can go and deal
with the local people and go and see
what the food is like and what the
culture is like and and get get that in
my life and that's that's sort of where
i'm moving to as i become older that's
so [ __ ] interesting so the notion of
human touch is something that i think is
really fascinating and way under
appreciated for people
um i heard somebody just yesterday damn
and i forgetting who said it but they
said you're so connected you're
disconnected and i thought yeah like i
get that like
when
the most torturous part about being in
solitary confinement is the lack of
human touch which you can very easily
take for granted
it's interesting that you put your
finger on that as something that you
would pursue in terms of being in the
community and then i'm not saying i want
to go around touching strangers yeah
yeah i know i just want to be in touch
you know yeah and then the other part
sounds like if i had to put it into just
a word experiences
how do experiences shape you well
memories right we're all
you know the collection of our memories
we're that's that's that's who we are um
and the interesting thing about memory
is that memory is
is
has a has an inherent bias you're gonna
remember things not how they were you're
going to remember things sort of
your perspective and your perspective is
not always the truth you know it could
be maybe your truth but you know um
so we build who we are based on these
memories that people identify by
the music they listen to when they were
in high school or college because that's
when they were developing who they were
so in high school college i was you know
i was a nas guy i used to ride the train
in high school and i would see somebody
with like
nikes and baggy jeans on and like a
tommy hilfiger sweater and immediately
i'm making a spiritual connection with
that person because i'm like i'm that
guy i'm like that guy that guy probably
likes the foose niggens and i like the
foosh nickens and that's who i am that's
that's who i am and that becomes your
identity and what happens is you
remember that time as when you as when
you were developing into who you were so
you become an adult and you get to my
age
and you'd be like man
nothing was better than 90s nothing was
better than tropical quests and and the
music and man the way these kids are
dressing with these tight jeans and man
nothing was better than how we dress and
that stuff becomes
you know rolls it looks rose through
your rose colored glasses and you you
start to forget that mob deep's music
was hyper violent and biggie was super
violent and super misogynistic because
in your rose-colored nostalgia glasses
that's real
that's old-school hip-hop and they
talked about positive stuff which is
crazy it really is crazy how much we're
a product of our
time
as much as our environment and like you
said there's there's something going on
in the brain when you were talking about
memories i think that that's something
that is ill understood with people and
when you really start looking at the
research and seeing how
memories are are stored but when you
access them you pull them out into
working memory they are manipulated
while they're there the things that your
current mood or whatever is you're
looking at that memory then change it
and so when you put away the memory it's
right it's fundamentally altered it's a
living thing yeah exactly well said and
so as you were talking about that i
thought oh i wonder what word in your
own life you would find
um
more interesting maybe the right way to
say which one you move towards more
evolution or reinvention like which one
of those when you think about yourself
which one do you either aspire to or
naturally move towards
i like both but i i would move towards
reinvention only because of sort of the
cultural
uh
sort of ramifications of
evolution uh you know racism social
construct and the race dropped into the
conversation you know evolution and that
type of science has been used to justify
racist
biases so even though i like to think
that i evolve and i think people do
evolve if you had to ask me to choose
which i would choose reinvention so as
you think about that and going back to
you're now living forever
how would you conceptualize that
reinvention are you as you travel the
world and you're encountering all these
people and forming new memories and
bonds and and being influenced by the
lives that touch you as well as the
lives that you touch um is there
directionality to that like is there is
there like a if i think about a buddhist
or somebody who's really committed to
meditating they're they're really trying
to get beyond the trappings of iii right
and that seems to be and i know that i'm
oversimplifying but that seems to be
sort of the end of a lot of western
traditions is once you realize the self
is an illusion
then you step into something new
and
that's that's an interesting sort of end
goal is there something like that that
you have in mind whether as you talked
earlier about getting power is it power
to elevate to equality like what's that
sort of um
i know that calling it an end state will
maybe change how you think about it um
but is there sort of a higher calling to
step into i mean i think that that's it
i've i've had situations in my life
recently where i've had to question
myself and
and just and arguments and
debates i'm having with people and i'm
like am i making this about myself or am
i making it about the work and the point
i'm trying to make and how much of my
how much of how much
of my ego should i let go and how much
of my time
which you were talking about earlier do
i reclaim um because as someone who's
who's achieved what i've achieved
sometimes when people argue with me or
when i debate people uh and i'm not
talking about people like you
who i have there's a mutual respect
going back and forth but i'm talking
about people who just don't respect me
um
you know they'd be like you know people
will be like well humble yourself and
you and it's like you're not owed my
humility i'm not gonna pretend that i'm
not me because you are uncomfortable
with how mediocre you've been you know
and i have to own that i you know
there's
i have to own who i am but how do i find
the humility
and and give it up to
if god is your thing or if just the
universe is your thing whatever it is
give it up to sort of the higher
spiritual purpose um but still reclaim
my time and still stand on my my square
um that's been the conflict of where i'm
going to go because
i'm moving out the space of
i can't everything that i did that out
because i was young i ca i could no
longer be like i'm just a young man you
know i'm i'm not a young man i'm
youngish i would like to think you know
but i'm i'm now
at the age where i have to be the leader
that i'm looking for
you know with family events when you're
at this age you look around and the
older people are passing away you look
around like oh no
i got to plan a family reunion now and
so um
you know i just i think that that's the
um
you know when you go back to where you
know knowledge wisdom and understanding
like the knowledge
is
i had when i was working in a bookstore
i had access to the knowledge i'm
looking around i'm seeing all the books
i'm taking in on knowledge and knowledge
is making me say things like
you know uh
[ __ ] voting and now just making me say
things like um
you know whatever like things that i've
that i've evolved on but then you have
the wisdom
who comes next and you start to apply
the knowledge properly and the wisdom is
when you start seeing me changing my
career it's like i have this knowledge
about how the music business is but then
i have a wisdom
to know to have to have to start my own
label and the things i've learned from
that
now i'm starting to approach the
understanding and i guess the
understanding is
moving away from yourself what is it
that i
did i have to contribute to the society
um
who is it that i'm looking at
who's
before me
like the harry belafonte's
who's after me like the nifty hustles
you know where where am i in that and
that's where really where i'm looking at
yeah that's uh the the evolution of the
culture the evolution of the individual
that stuff to me is is really really
interesting and i think you've been a
powerful voice for
um the individual needing to take
responsibility for their own evolution
you're certainly a very active voice in
shaping the culture both as a talent and
as a
i don't know sort of the wise guidance
you know as you talk about wandering the
earth like kane it's you know kane was
both the student and the teacher and i
think that that's something that's super
super interesting what is something that
you hope people take away from the way
that you move through the world whether
that's you down in ferguson and saying
i'm not just gonna [ __ ] tweet about
it i'm gonna roll up i'm gonna be here
i'm gonna be a voice that challenges i'm
going to be a voice that reflects truth
like what do you hope people learn from
all of that and and will hopefully do as
that up and coming generation well i
think it's what you said before um about
getting to the point where it's about
the work and it's not about you activism
is about
for me personally food clothing shelter
on the ground what are the people need
because we're not going to solve racism
with heady academic
conversations we're not going to solve
the world's problems with these nice
lights and this camera and this
wonderful wonderful interview you know
we're blessed and privileged to even be
here um
but we have to we have to use these
platforms to to sort of shine the light
on the people who do the sort of food
clothing shelter work and if i could be
that because i don't i don't come from
poverty
i grew up in brooklyn i didn't grow up
rich but i didn't grow up i never had to
use food stamps i didn't you know it
wasn't i didn't come from that i come
from a very sort of privileged academic
background well if that's where i come
from how do i use that platform
to uplift the people who didn't have
uh the opportunities that i was
presented and provided with and i think
that's what i what i've tried to do i
think that's why i gravitated towards
towards hip-hop i realized that my
writing skill
and my access to knowledge was because
of the parents that i was blessed to be
born to
early in my life i saw that hip-hop was
poetry and i was like this is how i can
connect to the culture because i was
like a black nerd i didn't i didn't have
a lot of black friends when i was a
little kid not until i started rapping
at junior high school that was like my
introduction to black culture all my
friends was was was i was living in park
slope around a bunch of dominican and
puerto rican kids and a bunch of white
kids and um
sort of like how don uh donald glover
was on community it was like [ __ ] this
noise i'mma write the blackest show i
could write because black people don't
know who i am and then i'm gonna make
the blackest song i can make and i'm
gonna tell them to stay woke because i
want a black audience that's how i was
in junior high school
yeah it's interesting how you had a lot
of self-awareness at that time to
understand hip-hop to
dive so deeply into that world to let it
really begin to influence you then you
go off track and you get back on track
and and do it in a much more conscious
way
that is really interesting what are some
lessons that
like they say a fool never learns a
smart man learns from his mistakes but a
wise man learns from the mistakes of
others what are some of the
missteps that you feel you went down
that if people could learn from they
could avoid those mistakes
um i feel like
at the height of my career i should have
been braver and going independent sooner
okay you know i come from sort of um an
indie community um lp from company flow
and now run the jules um was an early
influence on me as an artist and he
continues to be he's somebody who has
always found a way
from official recordings
to def jux to run the jewels to carve
out a space for him to do what he wants
to do professionally and never ever bow
to the system and this is a guy that i
have a huge amount of respect for
but even though i knew people like that
i believed the hype or i didn't
necessarily believe the hype i wanted to
believe the hype
because you know like you said i didn't
start out as want to be a conscious
artist i want i started out want to be
ella cool j you know or i want to be
just a rapper like well it wasn't like
i'm
you know
i want to be the best rapper um i didn't
want to be the best conscious rapper um
i wanted to have a song on the radio and
have a hit that's what i wanted when i
was a kid um
at the height of that
if i had made some independent moves at
that height i would have been looked at
the people my contemporaries like lp or
tec-9 or certain other people um you
know that would be a regret i i it's a
hard question because i i try not to
have any regrets i i don't live by that
you have a philosophical stance about
not regretting things because it made
you who you are i do i kind of do but i
guess regret is not the word
um
yeah that's even a hard question to ask
because
i wish i regret nah this is who who i am
but
we were talking about ifs
earlier you told me if you live forever
so in this hypothetical world
we have the luxury and the privilege to
discuss things hypothetically in this
hypothetical world if
i could go back
it's not a regret but if i could go back
i would go independent quicker okay yeah
if you were going to write down a
playbook and i know you are working on a
book but
more memoir yes memoir okay so if you
were going to write the playbook for
people coming up behind you about how to
become yourself i think is the most
interesting way to ask it so not
necessarily just how to become a legend
in hip-hop but
what path should people walk if they
want to discover and define who they're
going to become i think it's about your
definition of success and in this
capitalist system and in a system where
whoever has the most toys wins
the our definition of success too often
is
whoever has the most toys wins whoever
is the most pop and wins whoever is has
the most likes on instagram wins and i
think we have to change our definition
of success for me success is doing what
you love for a living it doesn't mean
you're rich doesn't mean you're famous
it doesn't mean you'll never struggle
again it just means doing what you love
for a living and if that's the metric
then that's how you get successful and
the closer you get to doing what you
love or being yourself for a living the
more successful you get they wrote a
book about it a few years ago called the
secret
and they sold it and they sold millions
and millions of copies of this book and
if you read the book it was basically
like do what you love for a living and
i'm like that shouldn't be a secret
yeah it shouldn't be a secret so why do
you think it is why do you think that so
few people are able to do that well
because the game is to be sold not to be
told and there's money to be made in
keeping information away from people
that's interesting so how do people
growing up in that system how do they
buck out of it is it uh there are
certain google searches they should be
doing going to a website you have a lot
of books on your website i'm guessing
those are highly curated yes like is it
is it stuff like that finding somebody
like you who's a curator of not only
culture but wisdom knowledge perspective
finding somebody like that latching on
and sort of going through the reps yeah
i think it's about that it's really
about understanding your values though i
think a lot of people especially in the
social media era
don't really understand what it is
they're about
people respond emotionally to things
that make them feel good
and so
i don't think people are vetting
the information that they're getting in
online spaces and and i speak
specifically the online spaces because
this is where we're spending the vast
majority of our time if we're not on
instagram or twitter or facebook we are
ordering ubers or ordering grubhub or
you know whatever what have you we're
buying things on kayak and airbnb and
we're on we're ordering drones from
amazon or bringing us things like we're
online i don't know what the percentage
is but i'd be interested to know what
percentage of time
people in a
developed nation spend on the internet i
don't consider myself an internet person
i spend an inordinate amount of time
online me personally and i'm someone who
i have made moves in the real world i
can't even imagine people who just sit
behind a keyboard nest all their
you know that's that's they're like
ready player one you know i'm saying
like you know i feel like we're closer
to that than than we even could imagine
so speaking to your um
the way that you move on twitter so you
people have told you a thousand times
don't debate the trolls but um you have
a pretty interesting stance on that why
do you push back so hard on trolls
um
the idea that
a troll
is not racist or not as dangerous
because they're designated as troll
is
foolish
and very dangerous and since when
are trolls virtuous like since when is
like i mean from what everything i know
about trolls i mean i read a little
token yeah like
you know i trolls seem like things that
you shouldn't want to be so you you you
say oh that's not a racist that's just a
troll how's that better
you say what what kind of society are we
trying to be a part of if we're saying
that it's okay for you to intentionally
want to be a deceitful person in order
to try to make people feel bad because
that's essentially what a troll on the
internet is doing right how are we
justifying this how we oh because they
play video games like i don't understand
how is that now a thing that we now have
to accept as if there's some sort of
marginalized group
um but
to your point um
i'm not speaking to them
i'm speaking through them
i come from teachers and these people
who come at me become my lesson plan i
use them to expose the mentality i use
them to speak my truth and direct
traffic to my website here's my show if
you have something to say come to my
show direct traffic to my bookstore
here's here's a book that i'm selling
that's about the situation um
but ultimately
to push back not on an individual troll
but to push back on their messaging
um
nelson mandela said
fools multiply
when wise men
uh ignore
and i live by that um
you know or the old adage that you know
a lie can run around the world three
times before the truth wakes up to put
on his ties shoes
these are not
uh phrases that come out of nowhere
so
when
someone says that
the guy who murdered five police
officers in dallas is
a member of black lives matter and that
proves that black lives matter is a
violent organization and i see that
comment on my feed and i see it because
they'll say it at me i'm not out here
looking for people they'll be like at
talib quality black lives matter is a
violent organization because and if i
see that and i ignore it awesome that's
just a racist troll
i'll just ignore him and racism will go
away because if you ignore cancer it's
going to go away clearly if i do that i
am
failing humanity if i know better and i
don't do better
i am a failure to humanity i am not
doing what i was raised to do i am not
doing my duty as a man as a father as a
citizen nothing i'm just [ __ ] failing
and i can't live by that i don't expect
everybody to be me
i know that that comes from my unique
perspective some people see a comment
like that
and it's stressful
and it triggers them they'd be like i
don't even want to involve myself in
that toxic energy because then i'm going
to be arguing with the person and it's
going to bring my life that must waste
time that i could have been doing
something more productive and they're
going to bring my energy down and now as
an energy vulture and now i've given
that person my platform i'm not i have
respect for that
i have respect for that
but you better be doing activist work
you better be doing something else if
you're not gonna be on twitter i have
respect for it what i don't respect is
you telling me why you don't do [ __ ]
that i shouldn't be doing [ __ ]
i don't respect people who'd be like
quality you know what you need to do
stay black and die that's it i don't
need to do [ __ ] you say
yes
look quality you know what you should oh
i should okay well maybe you're an
activist that's done activist work that
i need to be paying attention to and
respecting because you're giving me
unsolicited advice so share your
activism work with me and when i do that
people like you know what you're you
just say everyone's a nazi and then it
did okay now your whole facade is going
because i asked you a simple all i asked
you was to show me the work you do so i
could see how i could be working better
but
that's not what you came here to do you
came here to tell me to shut the [ __ ] up
that's really the end goal of what you
came to do and so we're socialized as a
as a as a society to place
politeness over justice to place being
polite
and being silent
over being correct how many videos have
you seen of some crazy white racist
person in walmart yelling racist [ __ ] as
someone and there's someone around there
taping it everyone else is like
nah everybody in that [ __ ] situation
that that devil should be shamed
until they walk out of there you know
saying like how how we have so many
examples of our society is so polite
i don't value politeness like that
because that whole polite etiquette [ __ ]
that comes from some colonial [ __ ] that
has nothing to do with community and
like [ __ ] that respectability polite
[ __ ] like
you and me
i'm not being polite to you
i'm being respectful to you you know
saying that's a difference you've earned
my respect you deserve my respect uh on
as a basic human being you deserve my
respect you know until you give me a
reason to be like i'll [ __ ] with you but
just on a basic level
you know but it's not about politeness
because that's just some hierarchy [ __ ]
that's some use just spoon in this fork
type [ __ ]
it's very clear that you have really
strong values which i think is really
incredible you started by saying that a
lot of people don't know their values
which is utterly fascinating to me and
then you also said that people with
knowledge have an obligation to share
that knowledge with people who don't
have it so as somebody who has this
really amazingly clear value system
how can people build that value system
because i really really really believe
if people took control of their values
created them intentionally understood
that they are something that you create
whether by accident whether because you
grew up in a shitty family with shitty
values or a city whatever but ultimately
now you're a grown ass person it's time
for you to assess your values make them
intentional like how do people go about
that process and quite frankly what
values do you think are universal well i
think that's what it is what are the
universal values what are what are the
basic values what's what's what's i
think basic human rights is a good
jumping off point you know just knowing
just everyone deserves
life liberty and the pursuit of
happiness everyone deserves basic amount
of respect and
i don't know the exact
un
human basic human right but just basic
human rights just tolerance of other
human beings i'm compassionate
compassion is very important to me um
what's what is your end goal what is
your value is it
a religious thing are you trying to be
the best christian you're trying to be
the best muslim are you trying to be the
best jewish person are you trying to be
the best conservative liberal you're
trying to be the best democrat
republican what is it that you're trying
to be the best at
and for me
i'm trying to be as compassionate as
humanly possible
i respect that
tell people where they can find out more
about you which there are a lot of
places give them your favorites oh man
i'm just really out here though um
now i'm just i'm on social media i'm
easy to find my name is my name on there
and um i tour a lot and i'm i'm out i'm
just out here just walking these streets
like kane and kung fu
indeed you are
all right if you were going to
focus all of your time and attention on
having tremendous impact in the world
what impact would you want to have
i want people to
just be as close to their to their truth
as possible i want people to be art to
me
is the is true honesty and i think
trying to get towards honesty is where i
want people to be um
i'm able to like
hip-hop that's not conscious when i see
the honesty in it when i see the honesty
in
gucci mane when i see the honesty in
eminem
which are you know two
very opposite sort of hip-hop artists
neither one of them make music like i
make and i don't make music like either
one of my made songs with gucci i've
never made songs with eminem um
but
to me it's really about that honest
expression and um
that's really what my focus has been for
for for what i've tried to impart in my
music
i love that
talib thank you so much for coming on
the show man that was incredible guys do
yourself a favor listen to his music
first and foremost you want to talk
about somebody who really knows how to
express themselves it is absolutely
extraordinary and then watch how he
moves through this world especially as
he goes into his phase as kane walking
the earth learning and educating it will
be amazing guys if you haven't already
be sure to subscribe and until next time
my friends be legendary take care to
live [ __ ] quality that was
amazing
and i had to be perfect we're supposed
to embrace all our imperfections
and i think if we find and can imagine
the bright side in anything that will
become a reality
but you can't think anything's going to
be given to you other than opportunity
and the only way to show appreciation
for opportunity is to react