Chuck D Quotes

Chuck D shares witty, gritty commentary on politics and media, ideal for those who value raw authenticity.

31 quotes

1. A lot of times black folks look for love in all the wrong places. You're always looking for somebody to love you, be accepted, and there's the insecurities that are even transmitted through rap. Everyone is trying to aim to please too much.

2. I think governments are the cancer of civilization.

3. I think right about now we have to beware of marketed Malcolms and Martins. Real people do real things.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. Of course voting is useful. But then again, I don't put a big glow to it. Voting is about as essential as washing yourself. It's something you're supposed to do. Now, you can't go around bragging, expecting to get props because you voted. That's stupid.

7. Overall the rap that we're exposed to is maybe 15 percent of what's out there. What the major companies have done in the last few years is find out that they couldn't find any more Whitesnakes. They took a look at their marketing budget and put it behind hip-hop and figured out how to make it pop.

8. There are too many leaders anointed because they have a public voice - television, radio, or record, or whatever. That even includes myself. In the past, I'd say, 'Don't anoint me when you can anoint yourself.'

9. We don't see the people who are doing real things getting enough props. We often see politicians who are everywhere but nowhere at the same goddamn time. You know the kind of person: You see them everywhere on television but nowhere in front of your face.

10. You have to wait for people to program you. The only difference is the amount of people that you're going to reach but that's going to even out in the next two or three years anyway. Computers are being bought faster than televisions right now.

11. 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.

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

13. Public Enemy started out as a benchmark in rap music in the mid-1980s. We felt there was a need to actually progress the music and say something because we were slightly older than the demographic of rap artists at the time. It was a time of heightened rightwing politics, so the climate dictated the direction of the group.

14. Music used to cause revolutions and I'm not seeing much revolution anymore.

15. Find like-minded people and try not to be individualized to the point where you try to fight it all and think about it all on your own.

16. For a long period of time, the media covered rap music and hip hop the same way they cover a lot of black people, people of color, you know, the bad news happens to be news. They used to have these little stupid colloquialisms that pop up like, "You know what? No news is bad news!" They trick the masses into thinking that any news is great for you. And I just think that's a piece of crap.

17. You can't take anything with you. So I don't understand this whole psychotic area of greed, I don't get it.

18. They [US Administration] have exploited hip-hop and some of the culture around it - magazines, videos, etc. - to recruit people into the military. The Army says it will give out Hummers, platinum teeth, or whatever to those that actually join.

19. Let the voice be the voice of the voiceless and let it come from the world of rap music to keep the stereotype and the peace at the same time.

20. Our freedom of speech is freedom or death, We got to fight the powers that be!

21. 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.

22. Americans are not sharp. You can be sharp in your own area, I guess, but in this world you gotta be conscious of everybody else in the world too. You just can't be drunken with constitution and hear, okay we're gonna do this and then you hear well, we're gonna go kill this guy 'cause he's a terrorist and you keep gettin' it.

23. Music should be some kind of nourishment.

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

25. Truth is truth no matter what I think.

26. I believe that, artistically and culturally, the free radio air should be able to support local artists of whatever genre. Play 40 percent of your local artists; don't suck up to major labels to the point where you neglect your own locale.

27. I grew up as a sports fan, and I know that a hall of fame is very different than an award for being the best of the year. It's a nod to the longevity of our accomplishment.

28. You're always looking for somebody to love you, be accepted, and there's the insecurities that are even transmitted through rap. Everyone is trying to aim to please too much. Number one: They're trying to please whoever signed them to a contract. Number two: They're trying to appease a gigantic audience and they get this false magnification of love. I came from a thing which nowadays would be the exception to the rule. I came from a mother and father who always made me secure in my beliefs, and that's where the love came from. Which made me look at everything else as procedure.

29. If I can't change the people around me, I change the people around me.

30. Rap music and rap records used to always be like this: we get one or two shots to a piece cause it was a singles marketplace and when the major record companies saw that it could also handle the sales of the albums then they started to force everybody to expand their topics from 1 to about 10 and you gotta deliver 12 songs, so a lot of times if you took a person who wasn't really developed, and the diversity of trying say 12 different things, you know the companies were like "Cool! Say the same thing 12 different ways."

31. The biggest thing that has happened to hip-hop is the clinging on to the corporation as the all-mighty hub of the music.