Mos Def

“Record companies are not necessarily interested in you realizing your artistic dream. The bottom line is that they got to sell records.”

“I don't have advice for people on how to dress. People should dress based on what they find beautiful. My best advice: Keep your clothes clean.”

“I'm an independent thinker. And I'm not the poster child for any movement. I'm trying to support whatever's right no matter where it is.”

“Reckless capitalism kills black people.”

“To me, the job of the artist is to provide a useful and intelligent vocabulary for the world to be able to articulate feelings they experience everyday, and otherwise wouldn't have the means to express in a meaningful and useful way.”

“I'm just an artist and I'm doin' what I like to do.”

“I'm a passionate person. I'm a lot of things, like most people are. Most people are dynamic. The focus is not on me though, I'm a screen. The aim is to always keep myself in the position where the screen is clear.”

“Twitter freaks me out. You have followers? It feels so obsessive and proprietary.”

“It's possible and available to any artist to be himself or herself on their own terms, to be accepted and embraced by black people. You don't have to be a thug to get love from black people.”

“There are a lot of people who call themselves teachers or leaders, but they're really just propagandists.”

“I'm trying to get low. People's personalities can get in the way of their own work.”

“You want to know how to rhyme, then learn how to add. It's mathematics.”

“Everything's got space between it, the planets, trees, your eyes. Your eyes get too close together, it's a whole different world. You can lose perspective.”

“I guess something that you love to do, you gotta ease up off it and give it a little space, come back and be fresh to it.”

“Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years it's a name that the streets taught me a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name and it's time to expand and move on.”

“I can't control what people think. I'm not trying to manipulate people's thoughts or sentiments. I write all the time. You have to experience life, make observations, and ask questions. It's machine-like how things are run now in hip-hop, and my ambitions are different.”

“Focused. I'm a hustler. And my hustle is trying to figure out the best ways to do what I like without having to do much else.”

“I feel like I was the only person who was capable of making this type of music in this type of way. I don't rap like nobody, I don't try to sound like nobody.”

“What I take from writers I like is their economy - the ability to use language to very effective ends.”

“That idea of peace and love toward humanity shouldn't be nationalistic or denominational. It should be a chief concern for all mankind.”