Purports Def Quotes

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. ~ Mos Def

Hard rock for me is AC/DC, Def Leppard, Tesla, Kiss. Metal tends to be louder, ruder, darker, like Judas Priest, Slayer, Iron Maiden. ~ Eddie Trunk

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

Live now for the promise of the Infinite ~ Mos Def

the "gift of interpretation" is considered on a par with the "gift of tongues," and indeed is thought of as the companion gift that must be sought along with tongues. An "interpretation" purports to give the content of the message just delivered in an unknown tongue, differing from a translation in that the interpreter no more understands the tongue than the speaker does. ~ John Sherrill

There was a time when hip-hop was its own musical principle, aside from sampling. Like the entire Wild Style break is instrumental. Kurtis Blow's earliest stuff was studio musicians playing. Whodini had a real clear sound, things like "five minutes of funk," stuff that you could write really beautiful, lush string and horn arrangements around, stuff that was just music. ~ Mos Def

I've always loved music and I love the language, which is a huge reason why I'm part of theater. ~ Mos Def

Politicians in our times feed their clichés to television, where even those who wish to disagree repeat them. Television purports to challenge political language by conveying images, but the succession from one frame to another can hinder a sense of resolution. Everything happens fast, but nothing actually happens. Each story on televised news is "breaking" until it is displaced by the next one. So we are hit by wave upon wave but never see the ocean.

The effort to define the shape and significance of events requires words and concepts that elude us when we are entranced by visual stimuli. Watching televised news is sometimes little more than looking at someone who is also looking at a picture. We take this collective trance to be normal. We have slowly fallen into it.

More than half a century ago, the classic novels of totalitarianism warned of the domination of screens, the suppression of books, the narrowing of vocabularies, and the associated difficulties of thought. In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953, firemen find and burn books while most citizens watch interactive television. In George Orwell's 1984, published in 1949, books are banned and television is two-way, allowing the government to observe citizens at all times. In 1984, the language of visual media is highly constrained, to starve the public of the concepts needed to think about the present, remember the past, and consider the future. One of the regime's projects is to lim ~ Timothy Snyder

It's difficult to really be an artist nowadays. People are just on another page. You have a society that needs you to say something, but they don't want to give you the environment to be able to be just a functioning, happy, normal person. It's like, the industry is at odds with you, the society is at odds with you. You start to live in this very confined box where it's like, It's "me" and "them." ~ Mos Def

I'm growing as an individual, but your always growing. All of my albums are snapshots of where I am artistically. ~ Mos Def

I get reminded a lot of the time that my life is a little bit different, but I'm just trying to keep it as regular as possible because I like it that way. ~ Mos Def

I began to fear that Mos Def was being treated as a product, not a person, so I've been going by Yasiin since '99. At first it was just for friends and family, but now I'm declaring it openly. ~ Mos Def

I don't like anything unsigned in a newspaper that purports to be the opinion of some group if we don't know who the group is. It's laughable to say that The Miami Herald's editorials or any newspaper's editorials represent any views other than those of the people writing them, so why don't we tell everybody who they are? ~ Dave Barry

I have inherited two of the most important brands in hip-hop, Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella. Reid and Universal Music Group have given me the opportunity to manage the companies I have contributed to my whole career. I feel this is a giant step for me and the entire artist community. ~ Jay-Z

The test in life nowadays is just trying to keep yourself charged up with enough good feeling. It's like, "OK what am I going to do to feel really good today?" Not like, some chick or a drink ... ~ Mos Def

That's what we both hate about fiction, or at least crappy fiction - it purports to provide occasions for thinking through complex issues, but really it has predetermined the positions, stuffed a narrative full of false choices, and hooked you on them, rendering you less able to see out, to get out. ~ Maggie Nelson

You want to know how to rhyme, then learn how to add. It's mathematics. ~ Mos Def

I can scare the pants off the holiest ghost. ~ Def Leppard

And remember don't high post when you're far from home, and high posting when you're all alone. ~ Mos Def

Mos Def is one of the most creative, intelligent human beings I've had the opportunity to work with. He is fun. The entire time, he would go in and out of different characters, just for the fun of it. Awesome energy. ~ Jill Scott

I've always loved Def Leppard, ever since I was little. ~ Taylor Swift

Hip-hop is the last true folk art. ~ Mos Def

The concept of "social justice," which purports to promote equality among the lines of gender and ethnicity, is based on intersectional feminist theory. Per the theory, certain classes of people are naturally oppressors, while others are victims. There's nothing more divisive than that. ~ Ian Miles Cheong

I been to many malls from state to state,But I've never been in, say, one this great.I hate to say, about the other shopping centers that's left,But the Albee Square Mall is the doo-doo-def! ~ Biz Markie

Hip-Hop went from selling crack to smoking it ~ Mos Def

The principle of always seeking an alternative applies to nonviolence as well. It is this: If nonviolence is to be credible, it must answer the questions that violence purports to answer, but in a better way. ~ Jim Wallis

Hi-def is merely the latest in a string of evolutional leaps that have transformed the way we sit slumped in front of a box wishing we were dead. ~ Charlie Brooker

People consider Black Star a great album, and I think it's a classic album. But the fact is, both me and Mos Def have made better albums since Black Star. ~ Talib Kweli

History has proven that it's impossible to crush the artist. There's always gonna be a need for somebody to write a poem or sing a song about something, about life - that makes it real. There's the word that goes beyond the word. ~ Mos Def

The aim ... is to provide a clear and rigorous basis for determining when a causal ordering can be said to hold between two variables or groups of variables in a model ... The concepts refer to a model-a system of equations-and not to the 'real' world the model purports to describe. ~ Herbert Simon

Good art provides people with a vocabulary about things they can't articulate. ~ Mos Def

I don't mind being black. I'm black out loud. It's more than the people that they are, it's the condition that they represent. ~ Mos Def

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. ~ Mos Def

Every time you ask yourself where hip-hop's going, ask yourself where you're going; how are you doing? ~ Mos Def

The moment you start thinking it's hopeless, then it is. [But], if you think it's gonna get better, it really does. Life is a test. ~ Mos Def

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. ~ Mos Def

I never had any ambitions of being a movie star or anything like that, but you know, this is nice. ~ Mos Def

It wouldn't be fair to cast aspersions on an entire cultural movement based on the actions of a few. To quote my grandfather, 'One bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch.' ~ Mos Def

And from the moment that I saw you, I knew you was trouble,
But I disregarded detour signs,
And did not stop til you was mine.
I guess God was like, 'Aight, fine.'
Careful what you wish for, cause you just might get it in heaps.
Try to give it back, He be like, 'Nah, that's yours to keep.' ~ Mos Def

I have always been involved with radio, whether it was as an artist talking to radio about my own songs, or as a promotion man at Def Jam to working records through my company. In 2000 I was asked to host a show in Norfolk VA and through that show I was then asked to host the morning show in Detroit. The concept of the show was around Hip Hop. We were active in the community and we wanted to do a local show that had a hip hop feel around it. ~ MC Serch

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. ~ Mos Def