Chuck D Quotes

I like to drive and I like to travel. When I drive on the open road, it's like sometimes the car turns into a pen and the road is a piece of paper.

There's people who feel that, Well, if I could profit off of sellin' sex to an eleven-year-old kid that comes through some kind of virtual portal, then I'm not really doin' it in actuality. I'm just kind of co-signing or fostering it, 'cause it can't be attached to me. I'm like, Yes it can, 'cause people are livin' through their avatar.

You can actually take your pain and processes it into some kind of form of art. So I mean, I've easily always been able to do that, but also I've always been able to give myself perspective - or, you know, older people always give you perspective.

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

If you ain't in the battle, don't comment on the war.

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.

Being positive is like going up a mountain. Being negative is like sliding down a hill. A lot of times, people want to take the easy way out, because it's basically what they've understood throughout their lives.

The Illuminati is just the evil, 'nameless' people who are behind governments.

Someone like Jay-Z does have a timeless quality, but it's much different than ours. You can look back at something like "At the Hop" by Danny and the Juniors or the music that was on American Bandstand in the 1950s-'60s.

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

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.

All I want is peace and love on this planet.
Ain't that how God planned it?

The United States is like one big jail for Black people, because we're locked into a mentality and a mindset that limits our potential. It has us against us.

I think the Internet was the saving grace for Public Enemy. Before that, travelling the world saved Public Enemy.

The best American is one who considers themselves as a citizen of the world.

If you want to speak about different ethnicities and diversity, rap and hip-hop are all over the planet. Every country, from Turkey to Australia, now has tons of hip-hop artists. The music and artistry have moved way faster than the corporatization of the music. You do need organization and opportunity for these artists to express themselves, and I don't think it has to come from a corporate co-signing.

My daughter's 19. I'm not asking her to develop as an artist. I'm just asking her to develop as a full person, human being.

Getting on the road and driving along a road at night, or even in the daytime and seeing the oceans or whatever, is always liberating.

I'd rather be hated for what I am than to be loved for what I'm not.

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.

It ain't this big I, little You. Music is to be shared. Music is not a hustle. [Hip hop's become] cultural stripmining [by the major labels]. Some people get into this music to make a killing but music is a way to make a living.

What made me want to become a recording artist; I was the first artist that was repeatedly asked by a label to record with them. That label was Def Jam Records.

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.

Rap is supposed to be about keeping it real and not relinquishing your roots in the community. Without that, it's just posturing. Somebody who claims to speak for the 'hood don't need no private jet.

Truth is truth no matter what I think.

Share and enjoy the fruits of this planet.

If you want to be an artist, truly try to write what you believe, and if you write when you don't believe then you should try to become an actor.

People aren't going to support an artist just because they have an audio file. They have to feel a real connection.

Ever since I was a teenager, I was always kind of, like, checking myself. You know, like, "Come on man, don't get your head all swollen. Life and time itself will give you perspective on what you're doing." So, that's actually what's always been a reminder in my own head.

Black folks are judged by quantity, not quality. It's a decimal point or figure. How different is that from slavery? There's no moral code, it's just about successful business for America.

It's weak to speak and blame somebody else
... When you destroy yourself.

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.

I'm recording freely, and if I make a song, I release it immediately, so I'm more likely to believe in one song at a time as opposed to albums.

Now what is the will of God? That's the big question. You can't say the will of God is to disrespect your fellow man. You can't say the will of God is to disrespect His creations, and you can't say the will of God is to disrespect the planet that you live on. You can say you're anything [any religion], but if your disrespect comes in any of those three categories, you're not anything, you're whack. I think the principles of religion start from there. Then you get into man's interpretation and bookology.

I encourage more blacks and people of color to get a passport. That's one way to help put people on an equal platform.

I spread the message of hope and of unity. That's what gets me up in the morning. I can tell you what is wrong, but I can't tell you how to fix it. I'm a raptivist, not a politician. I deal in hope.

Culture is this thing that we can exchange among ourselves as human beings to knock aside our differences and build upon our similarities. Cultural exchange is the ultimate exchange.

I like Rick Ross as a person. I like Jay-Z and Kanye West as people. But I hate the companies that they record for.

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.

Men have periods; they're called wars.

I always remain optimistic.

You know, it's nothin' quick overnight. If anything happens to you quick, you need to start questioning that. You know, you hear young people go, aw, I'm gonna blow up. You gonna blow up but with a controlled explosion. Don't just blow up all over the place.

You should be a person inside the world with knowledge of your terrain. And if you lock yourself into the 2,000-by-3,000-square-mile, lower-48 box of the United States, you're going to be frustrated by its limitations. You gotta think outside the box.

I became tired of submitting my art to a panel of corporate strategists who decide if it meets their standard of what gets into stores or not. It was quite simple for me: they act like judge and jury of my art, and that is unacceptable. I wanted to give it right to the public.

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

Maybe we need to look upon technologies and social networks as things that come out of us, not things that lead us. We can be on top of these things instead of them bein' on top of us as human beings.

I adhere to the philosophy, "I don't care who writes the laws, let me write the songs."

In the past, people were going to record stores and buying albums or CDs. And the label was exposing their artist as much as possible and maybe getting them picked up by a major. Now I tell people to cut a good tune and have it up in the marketplace the next day. You better be prepared to give it away, and people will come pay to see you.

Comin' from the school of hard knocks,
Some perpetrate ... they drink Clorox.
Attack the black, cause I know they lack exact
The cold facts, and still they try to Xerox.

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.

Cause I'm Black and I'm proud
I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped
Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps

When you travel the world, you have to watch and you have to listen. We're not going to come in to Ireland without an understanding that there's a history that's very sensitive.

A visit to the hood through a record, or through a video, or through a film, is a lot safer than actually visiting the people in real life. It became a business model. It became a revenue engine that, you know, you can get to the hood without ever going there.

Why would twenty-six-year-old "teenagers" care about political ramifications if their backs are not up against the wall? But if their backs are against the wall they may be plucked to fight in Iraq, and all of sudden they become politicized real quick.

I think the problem for the future generations is a lot of people ain't takin' the time to look for them and give them their voice, so therefore for their voice to be heard, they gotta bang more pots on the ceiling, so to speak; they gotta do crazy things just to get recognized. I just feel that whenever you don't give a generation some kind of voice, then expect side effects.

The immediacy of the technology of the web allows us, as songwriters, to write something very sharp and quick. That has a lot to do with helping a songwriter be more reflective of reality, instead of being in an area where you have to process things. It's the difference between processing fish and catching it in a boat.

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

I'm not a U.S. citizen. I mean, I'm an earth-izen. Borderline policies are crap to me.

One of the problems with hip hop is lack of infrastructure and not being able to control its own course. I don't like that hip hop is full of infantile 35-year-olds. Hip hop cannot afford to be lazy.

Rappers should just be able to perform what they create and satisfy the people that like and love them.

Knowledge, wisdom, and understanding don't come out of the microwave. You got to keep moving forward because the evil doesn't sleep.

You know, you should start to be in plays and things like that. Write some scripts. If you're an artist and you truly don't believe what you're spittin' then you need to really seriously be an actor then.

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.

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.

Government and culture are two diametrically opposed forces - the one blinds and oppresses, the other uplifts and unites.

Hip-hop is a part of rock & roll because it comes from DJ culture. DJ culture is the embodiment of all genres and all recorded music, if you actually pay attention to it.

The real thing is the heart, you know the heart shouldn't be covered with concrete.

And when I say it, they get alarmed ...
'Cause I'm louder than a bomb.

I think governments are the cancer of civilization.

We didn't invent music, so it's been here for a reason, and it has powers for a reason. So we should pay attention to it, because we might not know the clear answers but we should at least acknowledge that it is something there. To not be playin around with it.

Never try to make the same record twice, even when people are screaming for the same sound.

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.'

The best way to boycott is to build your own

Every time something tries to create respect with a machine it crumbles!

My work throughout my life is always representative of the time we live in. It's all about keeping it in order and keeping it in gear.

Never have so many men treated women like our foes. They call 'em hoes, but they might as well call them foes, 'cause you are totally against the existence of somebody who should live their life as an equal human being. If not, any man knows, it's like we're not equal. You know, women are usually a little better than us.

Try to find like-minded people. Don't choose your friends based on the outside, choose your friends based on your similar views or something that you can learn from.

As black people we were out to further our equality. I don't pay attention to the controversial connotations put on by media and the undermining labels they place on us. We pay attention to what our community situation is and what we need.

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.

Corporations have steered the industry into what it wants, and a lot of times they will make artists record what it wants or to make songs talk to who they want to talk to. But sometimes the heart and the head have to be able to talk and deal with a situation that's evident.

I'm most passionate about, you know, making everybody understand that we should all have equal access on this earth.

People are so confused about race and hip-hop that people didn't even consider the Beastie Boys one of the greatest rap groups of all time because they were white.

I think hip hop should be a living word. And what I mean by the living word is like yo, you gotta have the words that provide life.

No matter what's in your head, you go up into any hospital, up to a terminal ward and it'll smack you right back into reality that, "Hey man, whatever you're dealing with, if it's heavy on your heart and head, you're gonna have to let that go, because there, some people are dealing with unavoidable situations that they can't let go." And then they eventually let those go, so, I mean, that's helpful.

I always remain optimistic. There are three levels of music production: the majors, indies, and what I call "inties," music distributed via the Internet. The Internet is one area that I have used pretty effectively to break free of corporate control.

My thing is, the older you get you gotta stand up for what you believe in, and keep bashin' away.

Minds are the real estate of the 21st century.

Excuse us for the news,
You might not be amused;
But did you know White comes from Black?
No need to be confused.

I know I am judged unfairly by my physical characteristics and ostracized because of that so I say, "Yes, I'm a black man."

I was inspired by the classic rock radio of the Seventies. They separated Chuck Berry and the Beatles from the Led Zeppelins and Bostons and Peter Framptons of the time. In many ways, classic rock became bigger than mainstream rock.

Eminem has talent, and his talent is the thing that influences many young people who would have never gone anywhere near rap. White kids in different parts of the world use him as a barometer and the standard to live up to. In some ways, Eminem is an artist who has ushered in a new movement.

Oh, America is slipping away from the rest of the consciousness of the planet - slipping away.

When culture is created in boardrooms with a panel of six or seven strategists for the masses to follow, to me that is no different than an aristocracy. It's not created from the people in the middle of the streets, so to speak. It is created from a petri dish for the sake of making money, and it is undermining the longevity of the culture.

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.

I never live alone,
I never walk alone.
My posse's always ready
And they're waitin' in my zone.

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.

Bass! How low can you go?
Death row ... what a brother know.
Once again, back is the incredible,
The rhyme animal, the uncannable "D!"
Public Enemy Number One.
Five-O said, "Freeze!" and I got numb.
Can I tell 'em that I really never had a gun?
But it's the wax that the Terminator X spun.

We were coming out of the black community with this thing called rap music, which was basically black men yelling at the top of their lungs about what we liked and what we didn't like. It was disturbing to the status quo. It really shook things up. And those in power didn't know what to make of us, but they knew that we had to be silenced, stopped in any way from expressing our outrage.

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

Being called Black in America is the struggle to keep us moving and breathing over bloody water. Being a Nig**r or [Ni**a] without the context of history is like drowning in bloody water, dragging down those yet knowing to swim.