I agree that a lot of mainstream corporate sold hip-hop is self-hating.

And just as you can find hip-hop lyrics beating up on all these groups, including young Black men themselves, the primary producers of the music, you can also find lyrics celebrating them.

Hip-hop is a complex music and culture that has been reduced to a one-dimensional critique. Hip-hop's messages aren't all bad. Neither are they all good.

I'm not a poster boy for misogyny and I don't think hip-hop should be either.

Locally lived hip-hop culture that is giving many of America's youth the tool they need to survive and thrive in America, in the face of public policy that have written too many young people off.

Never tell yourself that it's going to be okay. Because more times than you know, it wont be okay. You'll crash and burn and your dreams will turn to ashes.

What marks a writer is this: until she - or he, of course - writes down whatever happened, turns it into a story, it hasn't really happened, it hasn't shape, form, reality.

Many small people, in small places, doing small things can change the world.

In the experimental sciences, the epochs of the most brilliant progress are almost always separated by long intervals of almost absolute repose.

I mean, like, rock n' roll was always about spirit and fun.

I have a really hard time stepping out of a limousine and confronting a sh*tload of photographers who are all screaming at you, because it's like saying, 'yeah, yeah, here I am!'

There are no true friends in politics.

Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret.

There is not, perhaps, to a mind well instructed, a more painful occurrence, than the death of one we have injured without reparation.

There is so much wonderful stuff and so many amazing people in this world.